Fun Time with Helmets
by im bored with this shit
Summary: This is a re-upload of a ten-year-old helmet smut novel I wrote. It's based in the world of the original orange box version of TF2, back when the characters' backgrounds and their world were still up to interpretation. Didn't think of it before, but looking at it now I suppose this could be a romantic comedy - an extremely violent and manly romantic comedy.
1. Chapter 1

The engineer waited until everyone else was off doing their own post-victory celebrations before even entertaining the idea of making a move on the soldier. With the sterner man having a good drunken mellow going, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

He gladly let the soldier throw one of his heavy arms over his shoulder and pat him roughly, all the while saying in his usual, over-the-top way how great it was to have a red-blooded Texan in his corner in the recent mission. The engineer returned the appreciative banter, cautiously wrapping his own arm innocently around the other man's upper body. It was a rare occasion for him to fully experience the shape and the feel of the soldier, so he secretly drank it in as he often did in these fleeting instances. The soldier's body was still hot from the fight, and the strength in that battle-hardened musculature was ever the more apparent in his drunkenness. The smell of his sweat and the beer on his breath were another feature of this teasing false intimacy that kicked at the engineer on a daily basis. Thankfully, the soldier hardly noticed the engineer's hand slowly feeling it's way down to around his waist. His body was so much harder than the engineer's comparatively short and stocky assemblage, and it swayed widely as they stumbled their way back to the barracks.

Being pleasantly buzzed himself, the engineer decided to skip formalities and get down to business. He didn't register entirely that there would be any kind of consequence to this plan; just a quick fuck before they passed out – no complicating things with words. The soldier was never good at listening, nor did he even seem to be capable of spinning a string of coherent thought for that matter. Besides, drunk as he was, he probably wouldn't remember anything in the morning anyway.

He skillfully undid the soldier's belt buckle and tried to keep the taller man steady along the walk, but the Soldier interpreted his struggle as horseplay and in an instant had stopped and put the engineer into a sleeper hold.

"A wise-guy huh?" he chortled and tightened his grip. The Engineer found his vision darkening, and had to think fast. When push came to shove, he was no match for a man that dedicated every waking hour to fighting. If he wanted to wear the soldier down enough to take advantage of him, the engineer couldn't let it end with the soldier leaving his unconscious body lying around outside until morning. Not again anyway.

He therefore concluded that the best course of action was to simply reach up into the soldier's now loosened coat and tickle his ribs with everything he had. Surprisingly, it actually worked; the soldier sprang off of him and reeled backward from the attack. The high-pitched yelp he made was priceless; only serving to excite the engineer even more. With the thought of the soldier possibly making more sounds like that at his prompting, the engineer planted his feet firmly as he could in his inebriated state and readied with open arms for another onslaught.

The soldier stumbled around momentarily before looking back and seeing the engineer's enthusiastic posturing.

"Come on! Ah'm gonna lay you out!" With plenty of liquid courage in his system, the smaller man didn't care so much about getting his ass handed to him so long as he could get his hands back on that muscular body.

"Ya think so, huh? Well you won't get the best of me, private cowboy!" The soldier just took his coat off the rest of the way (apparently more concerned about it getting in his way rather than why it was falling off in the first place) and threw it behind him. Then after a brief review of his bearings, the soldier charged into the engineer in his standard, screaming way.

He slammed into him hard and they both fell to the ground, sending up a plume of red dust in the failing sunlight. The engineer hardly felt the impact on his back, more interested in maintaining his grip on the soldier's exposed, rock-hard shoulders barely sheathed under that white cotton t-shirt. He tried locking the soldier's legs, but the soldier again proved much faster and stronger than he anticipated; he soon found himself flat on his back with both wrists pinned at either side of his head.

"You wuss." The soldier now loomed over him with that toothy sadistic grin, his breath blowing hotly into the engineer's face.

The engineer swiftly headbutted the soldier, his hard-hat making a loud crack against the soldier's uncovered nose and mouth. But the soldier didn't even loosen his grip, even though he was visibly stunned. He just shook it off and smiled again, this time with fresh blood trickling from his nose and staining his teeth.

"Is that the best you can do?!" he laughed.

Now realizing what he had gotten himself into, the engineer weaseled his hand out of the rubber glove that the soldier had such a firm grip on and used it to sock him more accurately in the jaw. This time the soldier reeled to one side enough for the engineer to follow through with a swift knee to his gut. That blow obviously hurt the soldier, but it wasn't quite enough to make him retract. The engineer kneed him again, this time as hard as he could. It made enough of a dent in the soldier's grip that the engineer could now put his back into pushing him off. The soldier sloppily swung and missed as he rolled further and further onto his side, then tried to wrestle the engineer's arms back, but by now had lost the leverage for that.

"Now ya see, THIS is what happens when you fight a MAN, boy!" The engineer locked that flailing arm and tried to force his weight onto his opponent's chest. The soldier coughed and wheezed, but still looked as though he was enjoying every second of this; he kicked his legs and got the spring he needed to throw the engineer off a foot or two. The engineer landed on his side and took a moment to get his bearings, all the while the soldier was stiffly rolling back up. He dizzily shook his head and swayed a bit in his ascent, still taking a second or two on his hands and knees to see where the engineer had landed.  
"Why don't we spar like this more often?" the soldier huffed and finally wiped some of that blood off of his face.

The Texan was now up and resting on his knee pads with his hands on his hips, catching his breath, but ignoring the aches and pains in lieu of that grin on the soldier's face. The man looked so happy, he didn't want to stop for anything.

"Ah was about to ask you the same thing!"

"You could definitely use the workout!" Soldier casually reared up and popped his jaw back into place. "I've eaten marshmallows that were tougher than you!"

"Boy – I oughta beat you like a rented mule." The engineer knew that that would come up, but it hurt his feelings none the less. He unbuckled that heavy tool belt as he stepped back up to his feet and let it drop.

"Heh – I'd like to see you try!" Soldier jeered and moved his feet under his body.

"Well, up and at'em, Yankee-doodle! Let's do this thing!" The engineer beckoned for a split second before the soldier pounced. He only had to step to one side and let the Soldier clumsily loose steam and face-plant himself in the dirt behind him.

"Shoot, son! Were you born that stupid or did you have to work at it?" The engineer chuckled heartily and looked down at the prone soldier intently. He could literally see the unbridled strength in that back; each muscle clearly defined in their bristling state. Even with all the dirt and sweat sticking to him, he could see that his skin was clearly flushed; he was closer to being grounded enough for the engineer to wrangle.

"Fuck you!" the soldier lifted up and spit out blood and dirt.

"Kin hardly wait…" the engineer's eyes wandered across the soldier's backside, then made their way to the length of extension cord that he had left on his tool belt at his feet. Several varying thoughts crossed his mind; the soldier might not appreciate his affection enough to sit still for it, and he was getting pretty winded himself. Hog-tying him might have to be his final recourse.

"What was that?" By now the soldier had gotten up and turned around, still in an obvious daze.

"Nuthin'." the engineer quickly snapped his gaze back upward. It was well known that fatigue rarely stopped the soldier from fighting. The grin was still there, but it was more of a grimace at this point.

"You alright? You look a might lost there…" the engineer had seen that kind of bewilderment before many times on the battlefield.

"Shut up and get ready, maggot! When I'm through with you, you're gonna piss lightning and crap thunder!" and with another fervent scream, the soldier charged the engineer, who promptly tripped him, then expertly brought him down, twisting his arms back in a full back hammer and mounted him like a young steer.

"Now Ah understand that yer tryin' to help me here, but I'm thinking you oughta take a break, soldier." the engineer got comfortable while the soldier struggled vainly underneath him. Feeling the man's ribs expand and contract with each breath, his broad back twitching angrily between his legs was something of great bemusement that was almost too much.

"I'll take a break when I'm DEAD, maggot!" The Soldier shouted.

"I'm serious now! We're on the same team, ya know! Plus, I think you have a concussion!"

"You can starve me, beat me, send me to die on some god-fer-saken rock, just don't bore me with your pathetic mercy!"

"No mercy huh? That's the way you wanna play it?" the engineer didn't particularly want to, but he wasn't exactly dealing with someone who could be reasoned with, so he pulled the soldier's arms upward sharply.

"GAAA!" the soldier cried out in pain as his shoulders were stretched in the wrong direction to the point of nearly being popped from their sockets. But even as the engineer held him up in this position and even gave his arms a rough twist, his voice quieted to the level of a repeating moan through gritted teeth – almost as though this treatment was bringing him back to reality. He even stopped struggling – arching his back into the torsion of his arms with an audible sound of relief in his heavy breaths.

"Had enough yet?" Engineer should have known better than to think that surrender was even within the soldier's grasp. The soldier pulled his knees under his body and flung himself upward and backward on top of the engineer in one loud and violent exertion. The force of it knocked the wind out of the engineer, who now found himself gasping desperately under the weight of the soldier on his chest.

"That's where it gets ya, professor!" the soldier tore his arms free and rolled off of the engineer gruffly. He popped back up to his feet and dusted himself off. Upon turning around to face his opponent, he found him still on his back, gasping for air and looking up a the sky in a daze.

His torrent of fighting energy shrank to a trickle instantly. "Engie?"

"Can't… breathe…" the engineer squeaked in between coughs, clutching his chest.

"Get up! I didn't hurt ya THAT bad!" the soldier looked down at him. "Did I?"

"…h-help…" One last exhalation leaked out as the engineer fell limp and silent.

"Engie?" the soldier stooped over his friend's body. He listened for a long moment – the sound of the machinery around the base was louder now than it ever was before.

"GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF PRIVATE!" the soldier grabbed the engineer's shoulders and shook him violently. The engineer's head flopped back and forth and his hard hat fell away as the soldier shook him. But there was no discernible response from him.

He dropped the engineer's lifeless body like it was contagious. He stared at it for several seconds in his frustration, hoping that he would soon hear the tell-tale electrical discharge from the re-spawn. The soldier wasn't exactly known for his patience, however.

"DAMMIT MAN!" the soldier quickly grabbed the engineer's arm and pulled him up.

"MEDIC!" he yelled into the air as he hoisted the engineer up and rose to his feet, strongly cradling him in his arms. He looked around for a few seconds, still seeing and hearing nothing. Everyone must have gone home already, but the medic usually stuck around and pushed paper for several hours after missions.

"MEDIC!" he called out again, marching toward the nearest building.

Pyro was usually around after-hours throwing cadavers into the incinerator, but there was no sign of him either. The smell of death was still heavy in the air as though everyone had just up and left.

"Dammit…" He grumbled angrily. There were no signs of life anywhere, despite the lights leaking out of some of the windows and the sound of machines running inside.

It was never clear as to whether re-spawn was automatic or at the discretion of someone at a control-panel somewhere. Either way, the soldier kept looking around, expecting the engineer to just come walking out of a door or lean out of a window. He stood there, holding his breath for as long as he could.

"You should not have made me do that!" The soldier turned his anger back on the sack of potatoes hanging in his arms. After still more seconds of waiting for the engineer to move, the soldier started to crack.

"You should have known better…" his voice shook.

The engineer could no longer contain his laughter.

"What the ?!" the soldier looked down angrily.

"Hoo-wee! Ah got you good!" the engineer laughed and pointed.

"You son of a bitch!" the soldier dropped the engineer coldly. The engineer landed hard on his backside, making a minor grunt, and the soldier bent down, pushing his furious maw and pointer finger into the engineer's face.

"UNLESS YOU ARE TIRED OF BEING ALIVE, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FUCK WITH ME LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN, PRIVATE COWBOY!" he jabbed the engineer in the chest. " AS A MEMBER OF MY TEAM, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE OR EVEN PRETEND TO DIE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!" He was obviously angry; his teeth were bared, but there was no trace of the usual grinning sneer. He was dead serious this time – of course he always was, but there didn't seem to be any indication that he was just blowing the usual hot air. The engineer could see at this close proximity that the man's chin actually quivered when he tried going back to his usual stern expression. The implication that there actually was a small glimmer of recognizable human emotion under that helmet caused the engineer to fall silent, his heart sinking into his stomach.

"Ah'm sorry… Ah didn't mean nothin' by it…" he carefully reached up for the soldier's shoulder and grasped it as firmly as his tired muscles would allow. "You're a good man, soldier. An' you're right. Ah reckon Ah shoulda known better." he felt himself getting all choked up as well, but managed to sink it into his usual stoicism.

"Yeah…" the soldier grumbled something else as well that was barely audible enough to be interpreted as words, then plopped down on the ground next to him with a tired sigh.

As the sun finally disappeared behind the looming wooden fronts of their compound, the two men rested on the ground in silence for a long turn while their sobering heads settled into their aching bodies. In the yellow hum of the sparse incandescent spotlights above them, the Engineer watched little licks of steam weave off of the Soldier's still damp shoulders and into the rapidly cooling night air. It was unclear if the man noticed his staring. Of course it was unclear how much grasp he had on the world around him in general. Not more than an hour ago the engineer was watching the soldier obsessively beating a BLU scout well past the point of death and into the bloody paste territory.

"How'd you know that spy was behind me?" The engineer recalled thinking that the Soldier had finally gone off the deep end when he suddenly paused his rampage and turned his gun on him. "Fer a second there, I thought you were gonna shoot me!"

"Somebody's gotta watch your back." the soldier huffed. "You're always too busy watching everybody else's, Sally."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eng'e appreciated the notion, but the soldier's tone was confusingly condescending.

"I mean that you need to get your head out of your tool-box and LOOK BE-HIND YOU!" the soldier raised his voice. "The battlefield is NOT a playground, Gepetto!" the soldier pointed in the broad direction of the now empty battlefield.

"Well, pardon me, Mister, but I bust my ass makin' sure that you don't fall short of ammunition out there!" the Engineer gave the soldier a good two-fingered poke in the ribs, now that he knew how ticklish he was. The soldier retracted with a poorly restrained shout, and the engineer grinned.

"Would you look at that? Ah think I found your weakness! C'mere, sissy!" he playfully darted in and shoved his hands under the soldier's arms. The soldier, of course, tried to kick himself backwards, but to no avail. In seconds the engineer had him on his back, half-laughing, half-crying.

"STOP! STOP THAT THIS INSTANT! DO YOU HEAR ME?!" The larger man struggled to regain control of himself, all the while his attacker grew more and more enthused with his hands moving so freely over his torso. Every touch seemed to throw the soldier into involuntary convulsion.

"Oh, Ah kin hear ya! Ah juss thought this was a 'no mercy' type of situation we had goin' here! S'matter? You scared, Rocket-boy?" Luckily for the engineer, the seem of his cover-alls came a good six inches lower than his natural crotch, and this new power-boner was not immediately obvious.

"DO NOT MAKE ME KICK YOUR ASS AGAIN, CUPCAKE!" The soldier shouted angrily and managed to throw a punch – but he missed by an inch.

"Ah don't think your in any position to make threats, son!" The engineer laughed and used that opening to jab the soldier's sensitive underarm again. That sudden jolt caused the soldier to arch upward violently with a pained shout. His helmet fell backward off of his head and hit the ground behind him. The engineer saw the man's whole face contorted in agony for the first time. He saw the soldier's dusty, weather-beaten skin and baby-blue eyes full of tears like a pair of shining oasis' in a vast desert of red. The engineer's laughter quieted momentarily. The tickling ceased and he let the soldier collapse backward, catching his breath in long, weary expanses.

"What are you looking at?!" the soldier gnashed his teeth at the suddenly awe-stricken engineer.

The man on top numbly pulled off his goggles and dropped them at his side, unable to find the words for what he was looking at. It was the face of his friend that he had fought next to every day for months. Now here he was trying to take advantage of his unhealthy detachment from reality; selfishly pulling him down from his ivory tower of continual assault. All for the purposes of his own lust of the man's body. What he was seeing was what the man kept hidden – and it was disheartening – a crack in that armor of explosive rage exposed an unfathomable fear of the outside. What he was looking at was not the two hundred and forty pounds of blue-eyed, red-blooded, white-bred all-American hate, but a beaten and frightened man. The soldier was a lot more broken than he had previously estimated, and the engineer found himself overwhelmed with odd emotions as the soldier tried to stare him down.

Unfamiliar with how to solve problems of this nature, engineer went with his gut. There was nothing he could say that would make this instance any less awkward, and nothing he could do that would not raise more questions and awkward moments later. Nothing except for his truthful intentions anyway, and backing out now would almost certainly undue any respect he gained from the soldier in this 'sparring session'. He knew that he had almost a seventy-percent chance of completely destroying their friendship and potentially the whole team's professional dynamic. But that thirty percent chance at never seeing the soldier fearful again seemed worth the risk.

He said nothing and took the soldier's face in both hands and kissed him passionately. His mind recorded this intimate lip-pressing for about four seconds. All the while feeling the soldier's whole body clench underneath him, anticipating another sock in the jaw at every passing instant. But by the count of four, the soldier only clasped the engineer under the arms and lifted him off. He held him there, inches from his face, looking back up at him wide-eyed and perplexed, as though he literally had no idea what had just happened. He opened his mouth to speak, but clammed back up again without saying anything and turned his puzzling gaze towards the sky.

"Ah…uh…" the engineer broke this torturous silence and immediately jerked his hands away. Perhaps an innocent lie was a better strategy after all.

"Ah'm sorry….Ah don't know what came over me…"

"HORSE-SHIT!" The soldier yelled and the engineer almost shit a brick. "I DID NOT ASK YOU A QUESTION!"

"What?"

The soldier kissed him back. Hard.

The engineer forgot to breathe. He reflexively braced himself against the soldier with both hands pressing frantically against the others broad shoulders and stiffened his whole body, clenching his eyes shut in the expectation of a devastating head-butt. Instead he was met with the strange vibration of the soldier's voice humming amorously through the contact of their mouths. His eyes tore back open and he saw the soldier's face had hardly softened – he looked like he was stiffly forcing himself through it with his eyes closed.

By the time the engineer realized that his lungs were burning, he was so starved for oxygen that his vision has started getting spotty. It took all of his strength to break away from the soldier's lips and he gasped loudly, sucking in the first lungful air in what felt like an eternity. The soldier gruffly yanked him back down onto his heaving chest like a life-preserver. His arms crossed over the expanse of the engineer's back, his hands spreading open like flowers and clamping tightly, making it impossible for the other to move his trunk. Evidently he forgot to breathe as well.

They relaxed apprehensively, lying there cheek to cheek, both men waiting for the other to make the next move. The engineer kicked himself for not fully formulating his plan of action, now that he found himself in this odd position; on his knees and face down in the dirt, feeling every pounding heartbeat course through his entire body while the soldier's pensive breaths blew hotly in his ear. He thought he had this man figured out, but instead he found himself just as unsure of him as he was the day they first met. There was no good in hesitating, or pulling back; he didn't have much of choice. With that soldier's iron grip, this good old boy couldn't get away if he wanted to.

The engineer turned his head and pecked the soldier's cheek. He figured that he might as well enjoy the feeling of the other man's short bristling hairs, the smell of his sweat and the feeling of his flushed skin pressed against his own before he got his neck snapped. He went ahead and tried moving an arm; reaching forward slightly and brushing his fingertips along the soldier's jawline. The soldier shivered – an unusual response for a man with more than a couple of bullets in him.

"You ain't used to bein' treated nice, are ya?" The engineer's warm brown chuckle stopped all movement for an instant. The soldier turned his head to face the engineer, his eyes still fiercely searching him.

"What are you drivin' at?" He demanded.

"Nothin!" The engineer smiled to cover his nerves. "Just makin' an observation." He ran both of his hands down along the soldier's sides and watched him drift off; getting a real kick out of watching him close his eyes and tilt his head back up toward the sky in that strange snarling dissipation. Upon reaching the bottom edge of his t-shirt, the engineer slipped both hands underneath and started making his way back up along the soldier's undercarriage. The skin covering this ropey musculature was peppered with scars, but comparatively soft to the touch and prickling with goosebumps – possibly from the chilly night air. The engineer could hardly contain himself, studying every available inch and burying his face in the soldier's neck. The soldier arched his back into his assailant with another confused gasp, and the engineer in turn spread his palms widely, rubbing that rock solid, but shaking set of abs shamelessly. He couldn't reach any further than the lowest rib with the soldier's arms in the way. They were wrapped around the engineer's ribcage so tightly it got him to thinking again.

"S'matter? You scared you might like this, or somethin'?" with that perpetual smile, the engineer challenged the soldier again, almost certain that since he was still here, he was therefore cleared for advancement. The soldier snapped out of his guarded passivity and glared at the engineer again.

"I am not afraid of anything!"

"Then loosen up! Yer actin' like it's your first time!" the engineer hid his nerves behind that chuckle. Unfortunately anyone that ever played poker with the engineer knew that was his 'tell'.

"My first time doing WHAT?!" the soldier let go and even pushed the engineer away a little. "I've been beating the crap out of fruit-baskets like you since before I could crawl!"

The engineer froze, still straddling the soldier. Up until now all signs were pointing towards the soldier acknowledging that the fight was over some time ago. Leaning back, he even discovered the other man's erection pressing hard against his backside.

"You…" he pointed, but was at a complete loss for words. "You're … you think we're still sparrin'?"

"Are you saying that you've had enough, cupcake?" The soldier just looked up at him with his brow furrowed and that familiar fearsome sneer.

"You haven't got the sense the Good Lord gave a sack of hammers!" The engineer started laughing.

"And you fight like a girl!" The soldier shot back angrily. "You can't defend yourself like a real man, so you start improvising with kissing and tickling! What the hell is the matter with you?!"

"This is too much…" The engineer's sides were splitting. "Aw, what the hell…" he wiped a tear from his eye, scooted back and started unbuttoning the soldier's pants.

"DO NOT IGNORE ME! I am asking you a question! Are you looking for a section eight?!"

"No, Ah'm looking for your pecker, soldier." The engineer had discovered recently that deception was in no way necessary. "What kinda man would Ah be if Ah got you all riled up and didn't finish the job."

"Whu…?" the soldier's train of thought derailed, crashed and exploded in the instant the engineer's hands dove into his pants. It wasn't exactly a difficult task for the engineer to find what he was looking for; once the soldier's fly was open and the briefs' elastic band pulled down it sprang out on it's own accord.

"HEY! THAT IS PRIVATE PROPERTY, DAMMIT!" the soldier shouted.

"Well, hot damn! Do you get an erection in every fight, or was it my lil' improvisational tactics that made this happen?" The now thoroughly tickled Texan sat back – his full weight on the soldier's legs, hands on his hips, appreciating the size of the thing for a second while the soldier lay prone before him, frozen in what could have been interpreted as shame.

"YOU DRUGGED ME! Take your disgusting free love back to Woodstock, you coward!" the red-faced soldier reared up, supporting himself on his elbows, gnashing his teeth like a cornered animal.

"You really are somethin' else, I tell you what…" The Engineer shook his head. "Drugs – of all the excuses…" He unceremoniously then licked his hand and reached down.

"YOU HAVE UNTIL THE COUNT OF THREE To – oh… ahhhhshhh..!" the soldier's eyes rolled backward into his head and he melted back into the ground as the engineer palmed the length of his arousal and slowly started stroking the head with his thumb. The very point of contact seemed to quiet all other sensation for the man; he grimaced and groaned through his gritted teeth as though he had just been shot.

"Easy there, partner. Juss let me take care of this right quick…" From this vantage point, the landscape of the soldier's body was spread out before him in all of it's craggy, sinuous glory. That stretched and now beige cotton shirt was still ridden well up on his chest, and the trembling, muscular core was fully exposed, beckoning him to reach out and touch the skin as delicately as he could without causing too much of a reaction. The soldier's arms flexed and groped blindly, wanting desperately to release that violent energy on anything that could be acted upon, but could only make due with the ground underneath them.

The Texan indulged the rush of excitement in watching the soldier's hands claw at the dirt, take up large handfuls and clench tightly into fists. He was so strong. His body was barely able to withstand this onslaught, and yet it writhed and bucked as though it was wanting more. The soldier's face in particular caught the engineer off guard; his confused and fretful expression begged otherwise. He still looked as though he was hurt – wearing a distant and red grimace of tearful agony that the engineer had never seen thanks to that ill-fitting helmet. He gradually tightened his grip as each determined stroke peeled away another piece of that soldier's delusional armor; between shallow, rasping breaths, a few small, pitiful sounds escaped him.

"You… you have a f-firm handshake…"

It took all of the engineer's resolve to keep up his rhythm after hearing that come out of the soldier's mouth.

"Ya don't say?" still smiling contently, though he almost choked. "Thankye kindly, mister." he picked up his speed and the soldier instantly bucked his pelvis with a start – lifting himself and the engineer off the ground for a split second.

"Woa!" the engineer laughed nervously, righting himself after landing roughly on his knee pads – for which he thanked his lucky stars. "Steady, soldier boy! Ah ain't through with you yet! Not by a damn-sight!"

"…c-carry on…" the soldier winced and locked himself down to the best of his ability – which wasn't much at this point. His back arched and thrust his lower half involuntarily, practically aching for release.

The power in this man's body was incredible – the engineer almost came himself when the gun in his hand went off. All of that caged passion poured out in more ways than just the usual – the soldier's overflow spattered hotly as far up as the engineer's chin, while in the same instance he screamed as he did before battle, sprang upward and embraced the engineer with the force of industrial machinery and bit down hard on his shoulder.

The engineer shouted in pain, but could then do nothing else with his torso compacted so tightly.

The soldier seemed to be in another world – he held that position for a long moment, his breath returning to him loudly through his nose. At least the engineer's shirt took the brunt of the soldier's bite, though he could hear the fabric being ripped as the man's jaw shakingly, but slowly broke away. The engineer sputtered as his lungs were allowed to refill with air. As his vision cleared, he noticed the soldier still sitting up, though panting heavily and propped up on his hands, looking at him like he had centipedes crawling out of his ears.

"You alright, soldier?"

"I can't… I can't move my legs!" he exclaimed. "I'm paralyzed! What have you done to me?! MEDIC!"

"I'm sittin' on your legs, ya danged idjut!" the engineer stiffly got off of him. Once up on his feet, the engineer stretched his sore back and popped his neck frustratedly, still feeling the tightness of his coveralls. "Shit – that's the last time Ah try and show you a good time…" he took out his handkerchief and wiped the soldier's semen from his hands as he turned to leave.

"Hold it! Stop right there!" the soldier clumsily rolled up onto his feet whilst fastening and re-adjusting his pants.

"Yup?" The engineer paused tiredly, barely glancing back at the soldier. With his body bruised and stiff and his initial infatuation quieted for the moment, he was effectively numbed to whatever the soldier could have had in store for him now.

"Don't forget your gun!" the soldier by now had already picked up the engineer's tool belt and brought it to him. He stood close behind him, the holstered gun being the first thing the engineer actually saw upon turning his head. "We might have won today's battle, but the war is far from over!"

"Much obliged." He took his belt back flatly and the soldier in turn marched off for his helmet.

The engineer found his eyes following him again, watching him systematically gather their discarded belongings and patting the dust from them. He wondered where he was finding all this energy. Maybe that man's complete denial was a good thing, considering that they shared close quarters with seven other men who barely got along as it was. The engineer wrapped the length of his tool belt back around his waist, his arms straining from their recent exertion

The soldier, his head now covered, came back offering the engineer his effects.

"Thanks again." The engineer pulled his belt tight, but found that the deep ache in his core was too intense for his usual fit. "But you owe me a shirt!" he tried laughing it off, taking back his goggles first and fixing them back on his head, leaving them off his eyes for the darkness. He tried to be discreet in using his hard-hat to hide his pitched tent.

"Sure thing, Engie!" Soldier patted his long-time compatriot heartily. It was a little too hard for the engineer at the moment.

"Well, It's been a long day, partner. Ah best be hittin' the shower…" still feigning bonhomie, the engineer nodded politely to the soldier and started walking again.

"Good thinking! It's best to face the enemy fully refreshed!" the soldier kept pace with him.

"Are you…." the engineer stopped and looked down. "Are you holdin' my hand?!"

"AFFIRMATIVE, and what about it, civilian?!" the soldier held fast.

"People might say we're in LUV." the engineer beamed.

"PEOPLE MIGHT SAY ALOT OF THINGS!" the soldier retorted. "It's just… It's dark! I don't want you to get lost out here!" he stomped off and pulled the engineer along with him.

—

"You've been yakin' on for a bloody fort-night! Come off it!" The sniper demanded.

"Excuse me! But did I include you in this conversation? I don't think so!" The scout covered the pay-phone's receiver briefly. "Anyway, long story short – the guy's eye-balls pop right out of his fuckin' head! I shit you not! Funniest fuckin thing I ever seen!"

"There's no C in the word Bullshit, you yoboes!" he leaned in so that the person on the other end of the line could hear him.

"The C is for COOKIE!" the scout enunciated the word cookie by striking the sniper square in the nose with the telephone. "And that's good enough for you, pal!"*

"YOU LITTLE RUNT!" the sniper whipped out his machete.

"Howdy, fellas!" The engineer chimed upon stepping foot in the break room, effectively saving the scout from getting his head lopped off.

"Oi! Where've you been?" the sniper noticed that the soldier and the engineer were somehow more roughed up than they were when he last saw them right after the mission.

"Yeah – there some action outside we don't know about?" scout looked over, raising an eyebrow.

"Negatory! Everything is under control!" the soldier stated, standing erect and saluting for a moment. "At ease, men!" then he continued on his way.

"Okay, see you tomorrow!" The scout turned back to the phone, but glanced over his shoulder as they left. "Were they holdin' hands just now?"

The sniper seized the opportunity to click the receiver.

"WOA! Hey!" the scout shouted as the sniper then proceeded to snatch the telephone from his hand. "What the hell?"

"Feck off, Tosser!" the sniper shoved him aside.

* * *

*some decades later the scout would be better known as a lead writer for a hit children's television show called 'Sesame Street'.


	2. Chapter 2

The engineer removed the straps of his cover-alls gingerly, finding that the bite on his shoulder stung a might more than he thought it would. He walked over to the line of sinks and unbuttoned his shirt in the half-mirror above them, letting out a tired sigh. He couldn't remember a time he was this sore since the old days on the oil-fields. The only difference of course being the onset of blue-balls. His arms shook under the strain of just lifting themselves, and he ran into a wall trying to get them to slough off his clothes, but he somehow managed to do it. Once he got to his undershirt, the fabric stuck to the open skin on his shoulder and he winced as it peeled away.

It wasn't very deep, but it was still an ugly wound – the skin around where the soldier's teeth went in was now turning purple and green from the force of the bite. He turned on the hot water in one of the sinks and ran it over his hands wearily, watching the dirt and grim wash off in semi-opaque ribbons down the drain.

The soldier had a strict hygienic routine from which he never deviated. As he always had, the engineer watched him in the mirror as he stood with his back to him in front of his locker. He maintained that stiff military precision in his posture as he removed his jacket, put it on a coat hanger and smoothed it out with his free hand before hanging it up neatly for the night. Then he took out that old cotton sham and his little tin of mink oil and seated himself on the bench directly behind him.

The engineer splashed some of that hot water on his face. The longing was still there; but not just the physical this time. Every morning and every night up until this one he was contented with stolen glances and friendly banter. But today he saw the soldier as a man for the first time. Not the featureless, untouchable monolith that he presented to everyone outside of his head. After scrubbing the flotsam of the day off of his face, the engineer straightened about half-way, leaned on the sink and stared into the mirror – watching the soldier clean his boots one at a time. As always, this serenely focused activity in maintaining his equipment was the quietest that the soldier would be during his waking hours. There were multiple occasions when the engineer mused at how gentle the soldier was with that polishing action. He never had the courage to actually voice this to him, however.

Engineer turned the water off and came back to his locker, which was next left from that of the soldier. He sat down on that same wooden bench and embarked upon the torturous venture of leaning down, lifting up one foot and pulling off his boot. At least once he started, it was relatively easy to keep the motion going in removing his other boot, then peeling off his socks and then finally being able to straighten back up and unstrap those knee-pads. Though he was a little late in his end of the ritual, the engineer settled into the relief of returning to normalcy. As he did every time they sat side by side in this room, in this spot, the engineer knocked the caked dirt from his boots and pant-legs and admired the soldier's battle-hardened legs and back as he obliviously stripped down.

By the time the soldier had already gathered his clothing into a ball and started walking toward the laundry nook in the buff as he did every day, the engineer finally realized that he was just staring dead at him instead of going about his own routine like he was supposed to. He scrambled to throw his effects in his locker, get up and retrieve his shirts from the sink in order to catch up with him. They always washed their clothes in the same load; their excuse being that it would take less time that way. There was always a strange duality in that a globally integrated company that spent billions of dollars in the maintenance of technology that brought it's employees back from the dead and supplied them with seemingly limitless firepower and at the same time would spend so little on basic amenities – each base (which usually took up several square miles of underground territory) having only one washer and dryer for the whole place for example.

The two men stood in front of the washer as it churned. Today was the first time the engineer stuck around, still eying the soldier as he stood at blind attention for any kind of prompt – from the washer apparently. The engineer leaned back on the hamper with a long, weary exhale. The soldier, as usual, did not move; his rigid stance now acting against him in the worst way. The engineer's half-lidded eyes searched him up and down, taking in every scar on the man's back. He wondered how many of those scars he acquired as a paid mercenary compared to the raging patriot that saw the German Theater; there was a line of five or six bullet holes running diagonally across his lats that could have been put there in rapid succession by a machine gun. There were several small slits grouped around his neck and shoulders – either from getting stabbed in the back or from flying shrapnel, or possibly smaller ammunition, it was hard to tell for sure. His lower back was emblazoned with a very large wound that might have been a burn, or another shrapnel wound that became infected at some point. Eventually of course, his line of sight trailed down to the soldier's strongly huened buttocks, and the engineer's timid sentimentality was finally conquered.

"You mind if Ah ask you a favor?" he lifted his head as if released from a spell.

"Go ahead." the soldier cocked his head slightly.

The engineer hesitated, thinking that he might have pressed his luck enough for one day. "Could you help me uh… finish cleanin' up?"

"What am I, your mother?" the soldier glared at him over his shoulder.

"No! no…" This time the engineer took a moment to better describe the nature of his request. "Ah ain't got no problem washin' myself – Ah mean uh… Aw hell. Ah'm still hard up an' mah arm's tired. Ah was juss thinkin' that since… you know…" he briefly made 'the motion' at his crotch.

"Oh!" the soldier turned around instantly. "Why didn't you just say so?"

"Juss tryin' to be discreet is all." he blushed.

"Discretion is for women and the FRENCH!" the soldier stated flatly. "This is AMERICA! THE greatest country in the world! If two grown men should wish to engage in a sexual act in the privacy of a company shower, it's their GOD GIVEN RIGHT protected by the U-NITED STATES CONSTI-TUTION!" He stood with his back straight, arms down, and chest out as though he were giving a speech to an imaginary audience of other soldiers. All he needed was an American flag billowing behind him.

"…" the engineer was taken by this sudden one hundred and eighty degree turn in the soldier's attitude even more so than by his fiery enthusiasm.

Both men, as it turned out, had very limited sexual experience (with men or otherwise); after his little diatribe, the soldier proceeded to try and do what the engineer had done for him, but the engineer did not much like being bent backwards over the hamper and being jerked so savagely as to cause bruising, so he hit the soldier upside the head with a nearby can of starch, effectively getting his attention long enough to yell -

"Dagnabbit! Ain't you never rubbed one off before?!" he shoved the soldier back and straightened. "Gahhh damn it! It's like you were tryin' to choke it!" he doubled over in pain, supporting himself with his hands on his knees waiting for it to subside.

"I thought that's what I was supposed to do!" The soldier was never very good at accepting criticism.

"Horse-shit. Was that really how it felt to you?" the engineer looked up. The look on the soldier's face out in the field ran through his mind again; that fearful, cowering expression that he had never seen before he forced himself upon him. The engineer began to hate himself.

"…" the soldier only looked back at him blankly. "Well, uh… I dunno…" he scratched his head.

"Shoot." The engineer puzzled at the soldier as he racked his brain, turning away slightly, red-faced and staring at the floor, rubbing his chin confoundedly. His furrowed brow was more in line with analytical reflection than with post-trauma. Clearly he was revisiting it; it looked difficult for him, but the fear was gone. He was just completely lacking in critical understanding. Perhaps he really wasn't used to anyone being nice to him.

"You are juss too cute when you're tryin' to think."

"Wut?" the soldier snapped out of his meditation and scowled at the engineer.

"Oh never you mind." The engineer looked at the floor awkwardly. He knew now that he couldn't expect the soldier to just leap into his arms and ask him to teach him how to make love. The engineer's bohemian university days were over some time ago, and the soldier was about as far from a sweet blonde with flowers in his hair as one could get.

"Look, partner – don't even worry about it. Juss forget Ah ever asked." The engineer turned away and headed for the shower.

He didn't hear anything from the soldier, and he didn't feel right looking back as he walked away. No use in twisting the knife counterclockwise if he could just finish himself with the soap and let it all be scabbed over by morning.

As per usual, although the showers had several stations, they were empty at this late hour. The squeak of the faucet handles were made that much more apparent in the deafening insulated quiet of this tile box. The plumbing in this place was pretty cheap too – the water came out freezing and took more than a minute to warm up. But once it did, it felt like the first rain after the ten-year drought. He leaned on the wall and let it soak in and run down his head and back, taking the caked dirt with it down his legs, to the floor and finally down the drain.

"You're not mad at me, are you?" the soldier's voice startled the engineer when it cut through the white hiss of the rushing water. From the lack of distance between them, the soldier had been following him the whole time, looking just as lost as ever.

"Soldier, Ah can't be mad at ya for not knowin' how to please a man." the engineer replied, cracking a smile and lathering up his hands. "That just wouldn't be right."

"I DO TOO know how to please a man!" the soldier retorted angrily, obviously not grasping the meaning in it's entirety. "Just let me give it another shot! Whaddaya say?"

"Slow down there, partner." The engineer had to press his hand on the soldier's chest to stop him. "Before ya go all apeshit stormin' my pecker again, lemme explain somethin' to ya. Just think of it as a gun, soldier - If you mistreat it, it's gonna jam up on ya. Just hold it gently an give it a little squeeze. Like this…" The engineer demonstrated on the soldier, who just barely resisted his reflex to jerk away. He tightened his grip on the engineer, trying to counter his body's retreat. He groaned from the strain of it, but he was clearly paying attention to what the engineer was doing.

"Easy, easy." The engineer felt some fresh blood beading out of that bite as the soldier squeezed down on the muscles in his shoulder. "Looks like you've juss got a hair trigger, is all." He then released the soldier, who deflated and shook his head as though he were released from a spell.

"Gently, huh?" the soldier looked down and puzzled for a moment. With some minor hesitation, he tried a hand at the engineer's 'gun'.

"Yeah – just start out real gentle like…" the engineer had been waiting for this for too long. When the soldier palmed his half-erection, it immediately sent shivers through his body. He had almost forgotten how it felt when someone else's hands were on him in this way. It had been too long in general; the engineer suddenly realized that he had started leaning on the soldier, resting his head on the man's shoulder and using one hand to steady himself on the soldier's free arm. It seemed that the soldier was too focused on the task at hand to think about how strange and unprofessional this behavior was. Either way, it felt very good – so good that the engineer didn't register what was going on either. He took another risk in rubbing the soldier's back. The soldier kept up his work unwaivered, however.

"That's the way, soldier…" the engineer let himself be taken into this strange and restful ecstasy; he ran his hands up and down the soldier's wet back, studying every inch, then he reached the soldier's buttocks. "Polish it just like that…"

This blur of fumbling and wildly affectionate fondling led inevitably to the engineer making his way to the soldier's side, somewhat intentionally pulling himself from the other man's grip for a new position behind him.

"What? Am I doing it too hard for you again, numnuts?!" the soldier snarled and eyed the engineer confoundedly as his back and rear-end was then fondled by the engineer's suddenly very deliberate hands.

"Shut up." The engineer shoved the soldier against the wall. He figured that the soldier responded best to an honest approach. And the engineer honestly wanted a piece of that damn soldier's ass so bad he could taste it.

"…" The soldier oddly did as he was told and tolerated being pressed against the tile surprisingly well. The two of them paused as the hot water washed over him, running the red dust down his body and drowning out the sound of his hissing breaths.

"This'll only take a minute…" The engineer pressed into him heavily, his arms wrapped around the other man's ribs and groping his hard chest hungrily as he ground his pulsing length slowly between his legs. He ecstatically rubbed his cheek on the nape of the soldier's neck in between his own grasping breaths.

The soldier's whole body was shivering from the strain of remaining still. It was an unexpected demonstration of trust that moved the engineer deeply. He almost felt undeserving of entrance – to truly know what made the soldier act like he wanted this.

"WELL? What are you waiting for? An invitation?" The soldier lifted from the wall and spat at the man behind him impatiently.

"Settle down, there, partner." He paused, moving his hands up and down the soldier's torso pensively. "Ah don't wanna hurt ya."

"Well isn't that sweet." The soldier scoffed. "Go ahead and try, maggot!"

"Ah don't think you know what you're askin' for!" The engineer couldn't hold back a small nervous laugh at the thought. He firmly gripped the soldier's hips and positioned himself a little further up between his legs. Of course the soldier winced and braced even tighter as soon as the engineer came within proximity, making it even more difficult, but equally as electrically stimulating with the amount of compression. The rush of the constriction caused the engineer to throw his pelvis forward in a mild spasm, and the head penetrated almost by accident.

The soldier cried out in pain. The engineer threw his head back with a yelp in his sudden physical excitement. Once the flare of stimulation leveled out, the engineer noticed the soldier still rasping with crippling pain, and immediately pulled away.

"Sorry! Sorry 'bout that, partner!" he put a hand on the soldier's back, reflexively trying to console him.

"Never say sorry, maggot!" the soldier barked angrily and twisted around. "It kills the mood!"

The engineer, again having thought that he had finally figured the soldier out, stood speechless. The soldier's face was back to the playful and snarling sedition that he typically saw just before battle.

"You think you can hurt me?! YOU CANNOT HURT ME! I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO FEEL PAIN!"

"Alrighty then!" responding to the challenge without a second thought the engineer thrust himself forward, effectively slipping in more than half way. The soldier cried out again but settled into obviously painful acceptance, the engineer struggled to keep himself from thrusting any further; unsure if it was normal to be galvanized even further by that sound. Every twitch of the soldier's body, the engineer could now feel through his most sensitive part. He shook his head, starting to see spots.

The soldier didn't say anything so much as grunt fervently and ease himself backward onto the engineer's length, his body being his true mean's of expression. The engineer shuddered in elation and flopped forward onto the soldier's wet back, letting him absorb him completely. The rush of the water was now indistinguishable from the rush of the heated blood-flow in his ears. He closed his eyes, loosing himself in all the sensation of the soldier's body – his heartbeat, his joyous breaths, his ever-present muscles enveloping him. He absently dug his nails into the soldier's chest in an attempt to keep himself in this position, and the soldier winced enthusiastically, sucking air through his teeth and arching his shoulders into the engineer's heaving chest.

The engineer finally let himself go, picking up a slow rhythmic grind punctuated by the soldier's steadily increasing moans, each urging him further and further in. There was something about the sound of his voice – it was gruff and demanding even in this receiving position. Every deep yearning moan was a direct order identical in tone with those harsh beratements doled out in every other circumstance.

By now the soldier was betraying no feelings of pain. He writhed euphorically against the tile, grinding and bucking hard, in turn causing the engineer to do the same, making a few guttural groans at each new movement. The man was obviously enjoying himself, and yet the engineer was driven to make for absolute certainty that the soldier felt the same kind of physical elation that he did at this moment.

The engineer moved one of his hands down, blindly tracing his fingertips along the soldier's trembling abs until they reached his ample erection. The soldier's response was immediate; his voice actually jumped up an octave and he quickly grabbed the engineer's wrist, squeezing tightly, but not so much trying to stop him.

"You said your arm was tired!" the soldier rasped.

"You said that Ah couldn't hurt you!" the engineer grinned, only having to brush his fingers along the soldier's shaft to issue forth more of that wonderful squirming pleasure. It was like stroking a large extension of himself at this stage – each having an instant clench and shudder to go along with it.  
"What's that?" The soldier realeased the engineer's hand and grunted in between thrusts, grinning ferally. "I'd swear there was somebody behind me a second ago."

It had crossed the engineer's mind in the past that the soldier did not make much of a distinction between sex and physical assault. But now it occurred to him that he liked that about the soldier. He really liked it. Made it easier to justify at least.

"Ah'm about to wipe that grin offa your stupid face…" the engineer gripped the soldier's arousal firmly and thrust himself in as far as he could. The soldier cried out in what could have been construed as pain OR pleasure, depending on who was asked. Either way, before long the engineer felt himself boil over, shooting hotly into the soldier as the two of them spastically jerked back and forth. Once emptied for the second time, the soldier started to collapse.

"Woa there! Stay with me, partner!" The engineer caught him and propped him up against the wall the best he could under his own body weight, being considerably worn out himself. The pair rested and caught their breath for a few more seconds, still connected. This was the first time the engineer had seen the soldier so much at peace.

"You alright?" he palmed the soldier's head and turned it slightly, finding his eyes shut as though he were sleeping.

"Git this damn catheter outta me…" he slurred, out like a light.

"Dammit." the engineer pulled away, but was careful to keep the soldier supported. The soldier woke up with a start.

"GAA! SCREAMIN EAGLES!" in a flash he was standing on his own and had the engineer in a full nelson.

"DAGNABBIT, IT'S ME! LEGGO!" the engineer struggled vainly until the soldier opened his eyes.

"Whoops! Sorry engie!" the soldier abruptly let him drop.

"What in the hell was that all about?!" Engineer recovered from that landing and got up to his hands and knees before discovering how light-headed he had become. He shook his head in a daze, pawing around for something to stabilize himself.

"Don't get your panties all bunched up! I said I was sorry!" The soldier casually took hold of the engineer by the elbow and yanked him back up to his feet.

"Thanks, partner. But that ain't what Ah was askin'." The engineer dizzily leaned on the soldier and wiped the water from his eyes. He would have prodded further, but he resigned that he probably wasn't going to get a straight answer if the soldier didn't want to give it to him the first time around. "Where's the soap at?" he blinked and searched the floor until he spotted it.

The soldier watched him stoop back down for the soap.

The engineer straightened and started lathering up. "Guess Ah can't git mad at ya for doin' what comes natural – you're a trained killer. That's sorta what Ah liked about you in the first place." he chuckled, a little curious as to why the soldier was suddenly so quiet. He turned to look, and found the soldier standing under the shower head, absently rinsing off.

"Listen, soldier - Ah never wanted to force ya into anything, so Ah'll keep my distance if that's what you want. We don't even have to talk about it. Ah can't say it'll be just like it was before, but Ah'll give it my best…"

The soldier just stopped for a moment, supposedly building himself up with a strong inhale through his nose, filling out his chest.

The engineer's smile dropped off sharply.

"Engie, you are a sad excuse for a soldier, but your record on the battlefield speaks for itself and I respect your alternative lifestyle." The soldier, still looking past the engineer, standing at attention with his arms folded behind his back and wearing that usual jutting frown. His eyes, though distant, were clearer than the engineer had ever seen them.

"But what makes you think that you could force ME, private twinkle-toes!? You only got to play with my dick and fuck me in the ass because I LET YOU! In fact …uh… ikindalikedit." That last string of words had a much lower volume and came out in a single breath.

"What was that?" the engineer's dizziness disapeared in an instant at the soldier's unprecedented, albeit still slightly delusional honesty.

The soldier's face then turned bright red as he cleared his throat loudly. "I said I need the soap when you're done with it."

The engineer stood agape. The soap shot out of his hand, bounced off his chin, and splashed down at this feet before he found the where-with-all to even react.

"Y-yessir." he stuttered, his heart bursting from his chest – shooting through the ceiling and making a bee-line for the upper stratosphere. He darted down after the soap. Once he had it again, he handed it off.

"Ah'm glad you let me, soldier." The shorter man stepped under the streaming hot water, still recovering from what the soldier had finally revealed to him. "You deserve a medal for that ass." he smilingly rinsed off. 


	3. Chapter 3

"If you're gonna eat all the peanut butter don't just put the empty jar back in the fridge, ya fat bald bastard!" the scout threw the empty glass jar at the heavy weapons guy's head, off of which it ricache'd, comically not causing any real damage to the huge man, who casually watched the jar fall and shatter on the floor. The big man then sleepily continued to chew on the bite he had just taken out of his peanut butter and banana sandwich.

"Must you be so LOUD first sing in ze morning?!" The medic sat at the kitchen table next to the heavy and rubbed his throbbing temples over his coffee. "Und clean zat up before somevone cuts zemselves!" he angrily leaned around the heavy in order to bark at the scout and point at the broken glass on the floor.

"JEEEEZ! OKAY, MOM!" the scout rolled his eyes defiantly, but slammed the refrigerator door and went for the broom in the corner anyway.

The spy chuckled conspicuously from the stove against the wall across the table, a small ribbon of smoke floating around his otherwise motionless head as he skillfully shifted the sizzling skillet.

"Is everysing a joke to you?" the medic turned his stinging countenance to the spy's back across the room.

"No. Just you." the spy replied coyly.

"Vhy you…" the medic seethed with clenched fists. The heavy weapons guy always found this snipping little drama between the spy and medic pathetic, unnecessary and mildly funny in that sense. But today he was hung over and wishing that everyone would shut up before he had to make them shut up.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" at exactly seven o'clock, the soldier momentarily stopped in the doorway to loudly announce his arrival in the kitchen and salute all present team mates as he always did. "At ease!"

The rest of the team typically acknowledged the soldier's entrance with single-syllabled grunt and a wince or a nod this early in the morning. Then they would ignore him and go about their business as he marched over to the fridge, opened it and chugged down the entire contents of the milk carton inside.

The spy always had a particular abhorrence for the crude and boyish way the soldier started his day. Everyone did to a degree, but from his position at the stove, directly adjacent to the refrigerator the spy couldn't exactly avoid seeing it – or hearing it. So he made an attempt to drown out the gulping sound by turning up the little radio on the counter. Normally he didn't care much for the Beach Boys, but 'California Girls' was much more tolerable than the sound of the soldier drinking an entire half-gallon of milk in one draft.

"Hey! Mornin' sunshine!" the scout caught the engineer shuffle in just as he was scooping up the broken glass in a dust pan.

"Mornin' all." the engineer drearily waved and made his way past the heavy and the medic to the coffee maker on the counter behind them.

"Herr engineer," the medic raised an eyebrow, watching him sleepily reach into the cabinet for a cup. "Did you not sleep vell?"

"Oh, don't you worry 'bout me, doc. Ah'll make it." The engineer warmly acknowledged the medic. "Ah juss turned in kinda late. Nothin' a cup o' joe won't fix." he turned back around with a smile and poured himself some coffee.

"Yeah! Engie's fine! He's just tired from fucking me so hard last night!" the soldier leaned on the refrigerator door and wiped his mouth off on his sleeve.

Everyone fell deathly silent and did not move for several seconds.

*…wish they all could be California giiiiiirrrrrrls!…* the radio blared in the absence of the usual human activity.

The engineer put the pot back down on the hot-plate with a wretched sigh.

"Yer jokin'!" the scout pointed at the soldier, trying to laugh, but looking like he might start crying. "He's jokin' right?!" he pleaded the engineer, who was now hunched over the counter, covering his eyes with one hand in shame.

"Dammit, ya dumb-ass yankee son of a bitch! Did ya hafta go an' tell the whole god-dang United Nations?!" the red-faced engineer spun around and shouted at the soldier.

"What?! We're all adults here!" The soldier angrily looked around the room, tossing the empty milk carton in the trash.

The spy only gave a throaty laugh and went back to tending his omelet.

"Fair das ist nicht." The medic whined under his breath.

"Ughhh…" The heavy rubbed his sinuses in utter disgust, now unable to finish his breakfast.

"Ya know I always had a feelin' about you." the scout pointed at the soldier and disapprovingly shook his head with a sneer. "But YOU!" he swung back to the engineer. "I never woulda takin' YOU fer a f —"

"Don't you call me a fag, boy!" The engineer already had his pistol out and was about to release the safety.

"Woa! Easy there, pal! I didn't mean any disrespect!" the scout grinned nervously with his hands in the air, his eyes darting between the barrel pointed at his face and the uncharacteristically furious manner besetting the engineer. "I'm just sayin'!"

The engineer, realizing that he wasn't in Texas and he was pointing a gun at the kid that he had grown to think of as a nephew. He quickly gathered himself, shaking the bad memories from his head and holstered his weapon. "Sorry, string bean. Juss don't … just don't call me that. It's an damned ugly word."

Another stretch of awkward silence befell the otherwise cheerily lit kitchen as the radio transitioned into commercials. Even the soldier looked a bit shocked by that outburst from the engineer.

"SO – " A loud accusing voice shattered the silence. "Who among ya used all'e starch inna laundry?!" the demolition man leaned on the door frame. All present turned too look, and were met with yet another unpleasant suprise.

"Where in the hell are your pants, son?! You think it's casual-fucking-Friday?!" the soldier immediately rushed the otherwise fully clothed demo man and got in his face.

"I doona care what day it is, ya bucket-headed bloody half-wit!"

"DO NOT TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME! I will PERSONALLY crawl down your throat and tear out your very SOUL!" The soldier roughly grabbed the demo man's balls, effectively subduing him.

"AAIIEEE! MOTHER A'TILLAY!"

As those two carried on, the engineer slumped down at the kitchen table with his coffee in hand and blew out a very tired sigh. The medic watched him take a sip with some disdain.

"Herr Engineer, I am forced to KICK myself for having thought better of you! It is vone sing to entertain homosexual leanings – but to ACT on zem?! … and with ze SOLDIER! Das ist unacceptable! What if ze administrator finds out?! What if ze other team found out?!" He scolded.

"Come on now, doc! Ah was drunk as hell… an' we started wresslin' around an' Ah got all … swept up in the moment an'… Ah made a mistake, alright? Believe you me, it won't happen again!" The engineer hung over his coffee in shame.

After another long and awkward moment of watching the engineer sit there, afraid to even move, the medic leaned in.

"How did you manage?" he whispered shrewdly, evidently trying to keep the heavy from hearing.

"Weren't nuthin, doc." the engineer smirked, having had this kind of inside discussion with the medic several times before. "Ah just asked."

A typified strenuous grunt from the Demo and a reactionary sound from the soldier prompted everyone sitting at the table to lift up their mugs and saucers just in time for the soldier to fly backwards and slide across the kitchen table, taking the table cloth and whatever else was sitting on it with him as he crashed against the opposing wall.

"KA-BEEEWWWWM!" the demo man flexed victoriously.

"Take your lumps like a MAN, you skirt-twirling drunk!" the soldier hopped up and ran back across the table with a scream. The table wobbled under his rough trodding, but strangely stayed up as it always had. He kicked off the edge and onto the demo with a force that took the both of them tumbling out into the hallway.

"He ain't too bright, but he's up fer just about any old thing if ya make it a challenge." the engineer took another sip of his coffee and leaned back onto his chair.

The medic took a moment to ponder this – but he knew well enough that the big Russian was nothing like the soldier. He was far more deliberate, an indication that he was more cognizant than that sleepy demeanor led on. After what happened in the winter of 1942, there was no possibility of a former Nazi just 'asking' a man raised by the Russian Red Army anything, no matter how many things they had been through together – no matter how many times he had kept him alive.

The heavy rose from his chair and made his way out of the room without a word, so much as a deep growl, still shielding his eyes from everything around him. The scout dodged out of his way as he plodded out the door. The warring soldier and demolition made way for him as well as he headed off – presumably for the armory. That was were he could usually be found.

The medic dejectedly dropped his head and looked at his own lap. He knew that he couldn't have said anything – but he beat himself senseless for his impotence anyway.

"Well don't that beat all." the engineer looked on, not really surprised, but assuming that the medic needed his sympathy non-the-less. "Uh… there, there?" he carefully patted the medic on the shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" the medic shooed him away.

"Shit, la-dee-damn-da!" the engineer scoffed and went back to his coffee.

"From now on, I'm not gonna make the mistake of turnin' my back on either one of you ass-clowns!" the scout, by now had pulled up a chair and was sitting on it backwards. He was resting his chin on the back rest as though it were a shield and pointing two fingers, one for the medic and the other for the engineer.

"SHUT UP, Du elendes kleines Nagetier!" The medic screeched.

"Now why in the hell would Ah be interested in your narrow ass, string-bean?!" the engineer retorted angrily. "Ah'd be to afraid to split ya like a damn cedar! Besides, Ah'm old enough to be yer daddy!"

"Perhaps … I could assist you?" the spy now had his omelet on a plate and a fork in his hand and was leaning in close enough for the scout to just barely feel his smokey breath on his neck. The scout's eyes widened in surprise and he carefully extracted himself from the situation without a sound – backing off the chair, still facing the men at the table with big nervous eyes as soon as he was clear of the spy's reach. The spy, all the while, watching him slyly as he quickly spun around and zipped off.

"Hon hon… idiot." the spy chuckled and took the scout's chair, turned it around, sat on it properly, and started eating.

—

Aside from some odd noises during the night, the pyrotechnic had slept relatively well. He was always the one that ended up disposing of the mangled cadavers littering the base after the daily war. The medic had his pick of the remains for 'research', of course, but ultimately they all ended up in an incinerator. The previous day's battle was a complete slaughter – almost too easy, and so the celebratory consumption of tequila cut into his duties and now he would have to go back out and finish the job before the next mission. After more than a year of throwing the dead bodies of his friends and enemies (who, for all intensive purposes, were identical) into a fire, the pyro had come to appreciate his counterpart's mask; that would be the reason why he never stepped out of any building without wearing that thing, no matter how hot it was, just as a courtesy. Seeing his own face cook just hit a little too close to home, no matter how many times he saw it. after a shower and a quick shave, he was ready to put his nose back to the grindstone and set fire to things as he saw fit. But first to head over to the kitchen and join his good friends for some breakfast. Along the way, he had to dodge out of the chaotic path of destruction being created by the daily fight between the demo man and the soldier. Normally, the close proximity of this tussle was never that much of a bother, but the fact that the demo had no pants on, made him reel a little further off of his course than usual.

"Buenos días, amigos! ¡Ai, Dios mío!" without his mask on, the pyro's voice was clear as the new daylight, which – actually couldn't be seen in this underground bunker.

"Stay out of the line of fire, Smokey Joe!" The soldier commanded, one arm wrapped tightly around the demo man's neck, and the other punching him viciously in the gut.

The pyro picked up his scuttling pace and noticed the scout leaning against the wall next to the kitchen doorway. He looked troubled.

"Buenos días, amigo. ¿Cuál es problema?"

"You better watch yer ass in there, Mumbles!" The scout whispered and gestured towards the kitchen with his thumb. "It's like there's a fuckin' BUG goin around!"

"¿Qué?"

"You seen where fatty went?"

"No, sorry mang."

"Shit." the scout looked at the floor frustratedly. "I really wish you'd learn some fuckin English already. Okay, okay – you go first, and I'll cover you." he shoved the pyro through the door.

The sound of the pyro stumbling through the doorway roused the attention of the men at the table, momentarily lifting that storm cloud of discontent.

"Mornin', partner." the engineer raised his mug and smiled at the pyro warmly as he always did, but the dog-tiredness in his uncovered eyes was still betraying some unknown weight upon his mind.

"Que pasa!" The pyro grinned and greeted him in the standard way, always able to find some safety with him.

"Ah'm a lil' hung over, but Ah'll make it!" the engineer chuckled tiredly.

"Hello! Good morning sir! How are you?" The spy twisted around to greet the pyro with the usual wide smile. His accent sounded more like the prim and proper spanish empiriales' than the pyro's more swarthy mexican rendition of the language.

"Good! Good! Hey what happened in here? Why is everyone so quiet?" the pyro inquired, motioning around to various points of interest; the unusually sullen team, the heavy tension in the air, and so forth.

"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing. The Axis Powers had a bit of a falling out." The spy explained flatly, pointing to the medic with a sigh.

"Did the Russian forget their anniversary?" the pyro and the spy shared a hearty laugh.

"Welp, who's up for some flapjacks? I'm starvin!" The engineer slapped both hands down on the table and rose from his seat. He was never comfortable with listening to a conversation that he couldn't understand.

"Very good, partner!" the pyro gave the thumbs up.

"Oh HELL YEAH! I fuckin LOVE pancakes!" the scout had been hiding behind the pyro until now.

"Alrighty then!" the engineer headed for the cupboard.

"Medic!" the soldier's voice gurgled as his throat was gushing blood.

"Ah tol'dim not to get cut! But'e juss kept comin' at me!" The demo sobbed, the soldier's arm draped over his shoulder for support.

"Dumkopffs…" the medic hissed, rising from his chair. Every day brought subtle nuance to those men's stupidity, but by now the medic had grown accustomed to it. He didn't even have to look up. He simply retrieved a cloth napkin from the cupboard and folded it for the purpose of staying the bleeding until he could get the soldier to the infirmary. "My skills are wasted on this team!"

The engineer looked up from the bisquik he was working on at the sound of the commotion. He had seen the soldier hurt like that before. He had even seen him with a gaping hole right through his abdomen, missing limbs and so forth. Even the first time, several months ago when the soldier blew his own foot off with that rocket launcher, the physicality of the injuries never hit home. That was probably why there was a weekly lecture for the whole team from the company executives stressing upon them the astronomical cost of the medi-gun and re-spawn technology; completely rebuilding a human being from the quantum level required more electricity than what it took to power an entire city. The engineer was probably the only man on the team that could actually wrap his head around how the technology actually worked – as in creating matter from energy through the forced deceleration of quantum particles. But the realization that this technology was being used exclusively for pointless private warfare while the world outside went without was often lost on him in his constant workload. Watching the soldier's life spill out onto the floor, the engineer strangely found himself worrying about what would happen if he lost this war.

—

The extra carbohydrates gave the scout a good edge this morning and he had taken two control points by the time the rest of the team had spread out across the open field. A BLU pyro put an end to his streak, however.

The sniper was rarely seen by his team, since he lived in an RV and only came inside to use the phone, raid the kitchen, or join his team for the re-spawn scan before the start of each mission. He did an alright job today – the BLU's usually had the advantage of numbers and would have already reached the RED base if he hadn't disappeared again and started picking the opposition off so quickly. The engineer made sure that a dispenser next to that preferred hayloft was the first thing he built.

Pyro of course, was ever-present in watching the engineer's back when he had his hands full, and the engineer had his hands full on a constant basis. Artillery always beat flamethrower, however; he died valiantly twice trying to keep a BLU heavy at bay.

The soldier and the demo man, despite their contempt for one another, had each adopted the remarkably similar strategy of yelling either 'FREEDOM!' or 'SCREAMIN' EAGLES!' and running into the open with guns ablaze. Luckily for them, the spy had long since adapted to their typical pattern and was already sneaking around ahead of them and disabling any less-obvious enemies so that they would last more than a few seconds at a time.

There was a brief lapse in RED team intensity from the big Russian having had half of a sandwich and a bottle of vodka for breakfast. It cost them the third control point, but once laughing maniacally and spattered with the blood of his enemies, for all appearances the heavy's headache was gone. With the medic joining in the sadistic revelry and consistently patching all the bullet holes in his comrade's body, it was just like old times.

These large glowing mounds of metal jutting out of the ground, called 'control points' were actually large sensory devices which, once activated by a man standing on it, scanned his entire body down to the atom and stored that information in his company's corresponding supercomputers, which were held in miles of underground warehouse-space. These devices enabled the team's re-spawn information to be updated more constantly, reducing the time between scanning in the compound at the beginning of the day and the men's inevitable death in the field of battle. Because the man that re-spawned was the man that was last scanned, not the man that was just killed, 'missing time syndrome' was often a deciding factor in the outcome of a battle. But the reason for why RED had these devices just sitting out in the open where any BLU Tom, Dick, or Harry could waltz on over and stand on it, was anyone's guess.

No matter how lucid of a grip he had on what was going on, or how the technology worked, it was always a jarring experience for the engineer to suddenly find himself uninjured in the re-spawn room. Especially when he thought that things were going well; he must have been killed while he was building that teleporter at the BLU spawn point. Hopefully the others were already using it to camp out and exterminate the BLU's as they came out at this very moment. Speaking of which; he drew his shotgun and cautiously took off for the supply room, knowing that he planned on doing that, but was uncertain as to whether he had actually done it. He noticed that no one else had re-spawned after him. He must have been alone, or perhaps a sniper took him out. Even while running around in the relative safety of the compound he felt a little naked without the pyro during active conflicts.

"Alert – our control point has been captured." The loudspeaker blared that raspy pack-a-day old woman's voice.

"Dammit, fellas." the engineer hoisted up that large and ungainly tool box and ran for the exit.

Upon stepping outside, he saw that the control point had been taken, but didn't see or hear a lot of action nearby, just the dull thup of distant explosions. flying sparks indicated that a spy had slapped a sapping device on the sentry that he had put up there.

"Spy sappin' mah sentry!" announcing this fact was more for alerting any teammates in earshot of his own presence more so than reporting the problem to them. Of course, it also alerted the invisible spy that he was dumbly standing there with his hands full.

The 'get-your-head-out-of-your-toolbox-and-look-behind-you' speech he got from the soldier flashed through the engineer's mind upon this realization. He dropped his gear, and the BLU spy's knife blade only dug a long trench into his arm instead of plunging into his back as he spun around. Ignoring the injury, the engineer yanked his wrench out from his belt and started swinging it wildly.

That slinky spy evaded the first few swings and the engineer kept stepping back, trying to keep a good distance away from that knife. But eventually adrenaline kicked in when the engineer realized that it was just a knife; he lunged forward with an upward swing, catching the spy in the jaw and sending him toppling backward. Once that BLU snake hit the ground, the engineer beat him a few more times for good measure, crushing the man's skull a little flatter against the ground with each blow.

"Ah'm wolverine mean, you son of a bitch!" Once satisfied that movement had stopped, he wiped the blood from his goggles and caught his breath briefly, taking a step back to view the BLU's corpse fully. This man had been the bain of his very existence since day one – to the point where he never could turn away from RED spy without a second look.

He shook it off and set to work fixing his sentry's twin barrels at the control point, and loading it up with more ammunition. Tending to these machines always brought him back to his more characteristically casual acceptance of his circumstances. He patted the sentry affectionately as the motion sensor bleeped back on and the turrets started scanning the landscape.

"Good ta have you back, darlin'." he then went back to his toolbox, figuring that a dispenser was in order for that river of blood flowing out of his arm. Being light-headed from the blood loss turned the process into a blur of fumbling actions. But he had done this so many times that he didn't need to think about what he was doing anymore, and the thing seemed to build itself. He barely noticed that his sentry gunned down two or three BLU scouts and soldiers before he was ready.

"Cowboy, up!" he smiled, fully healed and noticing the bodies building up around him. He then ran for the control point, shooting a BLU demo man on the way and positioned himself right on it. It blinked into solid red under his feet.

"We have secured the central control point. ALERT – the second control point is being contested." the old woman's voice echoed.

"Good night, Irene." the engineer sighed frustratedly, still having no idea what the rest of his team was doing. He must not have gotten around to building that teleporter, since the BLU offensive was still coming for him.

That one diligent sentry did most of the work, but each BLU took more than a couple of rounds before they would fall, and they each managed to fire a few shots. Before he knew it, the engineer was bleeding profusely again and his shotgun was emptied, but he couldn't leave that point for the dispenser if he wanted to keep it.

"THIS IS MY WORLD! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN MY WORLD!" A BLU soldier exchanged blows with the engineer, trying to force him off the point. Engineer was usually relegated to the sidelines, and in this situation it was painfully obvious as to why. Compared to the soldier – even the shot-up BLU soldier, he was a marshmallow trying to stand up to a campfire.

"HELP!" he called out, seeing a lot of red, but unsure if any of it was team colors and not just blood.

"Alert – our control points are being contested."

"AH KNOW! Shut the hell up!" The engineer had been well aware of the steadily increasing BLU to RED ratio for months now, but four to one added up to a lot when there were nine 'ones'. "Ah need some dog-gone help!"

"You are walking vomit!" the BLU soldier shoved RED engineer hard, and he fell down, but not off the point.

A bullet from the sentry slammed into the BLU soldier's leg, buying the engineer enough time to get back up and blind side him with his wrench. The BLU soldier finally fell away.

"We have secured our control point. Good Luck."

A sudden explosion not far from his side let the engineer know that his sentry had been destroyed by that BLU demo man running up on him.

"Aw, hell." The engineer readied his wrench, trying to figure out how he could use it to best a man with a grenade launcher.

"Doon't you worry, boyo! I'll be gentle!" the BLU demo guffawed and launched another grenade.

Without thinking, the RED engineer followed the grenades' trajectory and lined up his next swing with it. It shouldn't have worked, but he knocked the grenade back, sending it flying and bouncing off the BLU demo man's head. It finally exploded when it hit the ground behind him, and the force of the blast knocked the BLU demo man off of his feet.

The engineer, still leering from the fact that most of his blood was on the ground, couldn't tell for all the din that the fight was making it's way back to him. He held his ground, opting to focus on that BLU demo man getting back up and gesturing at him with a brown bottle. He couldn't make out what he was saying, but it might as well have amounted to 'Hey, I'm going to come up there so you can reach my head better with that wrench.' because that was what happened. In the rush of it all the engineer couldn't make out the words over the intercoms even though he could hear her voice. He heard other explosions, gunfire, and voices shouting and saw still more figures running around, but with the blood covering his goggles again he couldn't tell which team they were coming from.

The only sensory input that was making any sense was the vibration of the metal in the engineer's hand smacking against the meat of that BLU demo man. He might have been dead already, but the engineer wanted to make for absolute sure, even as another blue-grey mass ran up on him and struck him in the head. He lost the sensation of pain and color fell away from his visual spectrum. But he stubbornly refused to let himself fall down again. He grabbed at the air until he got hold of some fabric, yanked that boy down and beat the shit out of him too.

Eventually his arms tired and the beating slowed to a stop. Despite the feeling that his head was full of bees, the engineer still had enough grip to look around. There were bodies everywhere and although there were small fires dotting the scene, there was little movement. He now noticed his legs shaking from the strain of keeping himself up. He heard some celebratory shouting. That meant that one side was all dead.

The engineer let his arms relax and the wrench fell from his hand. The loud clang of metal hitting metal cut through the bees momentarily. He saw a figure approaching, but couldn't quite make out who it was. Maybe if he took his goggles off… nope. Now everything was too bright. What the hell was that noise… it sounded like the neighbor's collie got out again…

"What are you doing just standing around, private cowboy?! While YOU were sittin' yer keister playin' with yer little toys, the MEN and I were busting our balls fighting a wa-"

"Shut the HELL up, Harvey." Harvey was the name of Doreen's collie.

"Dammit, man!" The soldier back-handed the delerious and dying engineer across the face. "I am your commanding officer, and you will address me as SIR!"

That sudden jolt brought the engineer crashing back down into his bullet-riddled body. The pain was indescribable, and the fact that he was still here and not ten-years old and back on the ranch was more than he could handle right now.

"What are you crying for, you pansy?! We won!" the soldier demanded.

"We won?" The engineer weakly reached one hand up to the soldier's shoulder for support. "But Ah only got the four of 'em…"

The engineer fell forward into the soldier, who caught him clumsily. The engineer cried out in pain on contact; every movement caused bones to scrape together and muscles to spasm.

"Engie?" the soldier cradled the engineer's upper body, trying to keep him from slipping any further downward, while at the same time trying not to hold him too tightly. Every time he tried to shift his weight just a little, the engineer whimpered pitifully. So the soldier just stopped moving altogether, totally perplexed.

"What am I supposed to do, Engie?" The engineer had never heard that from the soldier before. This must have really been something for the soldier to realize that there were actions required which were possibly beyond his capability. The fact that he would step up to the challenge anyway – and even ask for help was a testament to the character that was usually hidden under all that anger and delusion.

"Ah need a doctor… dumb ass." the warmth of the soldier's body was just enough of a reassurance to the engineer of his safety to cause even further collapse. He retreated into the soldier's chest, seeking no more than refuge from all the bees and the bright lights.

"Zis saccharine emotional display is making my teeth hurt." the spy took a snide swig off of his cigarette. Usually when a team-mate was hurt, the soldier didn't panic like this – if it were anyone else he would have told them to rub some dirt on it.

"Ja volle." The medic rolled his eyes and readied his medi-gun so that he could heal the engineer and clean up this train wreck.

"That was too close. CLEAN UP THIS MESS AND REPORT FOR DEBREIFING." The administrator sounded crass as usual at the end of the scurmish. Receiving orders such as this usually meant that the BLU base had been effectively disabled, and it was time to incinerate its remains and move on to the next.

The engineer heard her more clearly now that he was being bathed in radiation and amino-acid based nano-bots. As the pain faded he also began to realize that he was hanging in the arms of the soldier like a southern bell swooning from the heat. He pushed off as soon as the strength in his limbs returned, and the soldier watched him dumbly as he shook off the nausea of his body's artificially accelerated repair.

"Thanks, doc." the engineer nodded as casually as he could to the medic, who looked to be sneering a bit more than he usually did when he was healing someone. He looked around, finding the same uncomfortable faces on his team that he saw first thing that morning – on everyone including the demolition and the sniper, who would have otherwise remained oblivious to his overt difference for a bit longer if they hadn't seen the way he was draped all over the soldier.

The pyrotechnitian's face was not visible, but he was obviously staring very hard and his clenching posture was clearly that of a man who just saw his buddy from work seek comfort in another man's arms in an atypically familiar way. The engineer could literally see the man's macho catholic upbringing eating away at their friendship at that very moment. So he gave up and turned back to the soldier, who oddly seemed totally unaffected. He was completely focused on the engineer as though he hadn't even moved his eyes off of him this whole time. The engineer could not find the right words. So he started moving - if those control points were remain for the exclusive use of RED company, their engineer would have to return to that blood soaked sand box and make repairs to the sentry guns dotting the grounds.

"That'll do, soldier. You heard the lady." He couldn't just leave the soldier hanging, it wouldn't have been right. The engineer pensively patted the soldier on the arm as he walked past him.

"Understood!" The soldier clicked his heels and stood at attention, letting the engineer leave. "Secure the perimeter, boys! Move out!" he barked in the general direction of the rest of the team, who only returned the order with questioning looks.

"Duh – yes sir, Sergeant Cockfag!" The scout didn't salute so much as mockingly slap his bent wrist against the side of his head and cross his eyes. He got a few small snickers from the others.

"Now what in the hell was that?!" the soldier scooted down from the control-point towards the scout, who stood his ground. "Smells like we've got a raw sewage leak somewhere!" He stopped not even an inch from the scout's face, which was still defiantly cross-eyed and buck-toothed. "If I'm not mistaken, it's spewing right out of your mouth, private twinkle-toes!"

"Well, excuse me, pal! I'm just callin' it how I see it! And right now I'm seein' a fuckin' FAG standin' right in front of me!" the scout chuckled back.

"I WILL NOT TOLERATE THAT KIND OF FILTH IN MY UNIT!" the soldier emphasized the word 'filth' with a swift and decisive knee to the scout's goin. The scout let out a high-pitched squeal and fell to his knees. Demolition, heavy artillary, and pyrotechnics reflexively shielded themselves, but the laughter hardly stopped. The sniper seemed fairly confident and unsympathic in his stance, however. He just watched and sipped from his mug, apparently having seen worse things. The spy and the medic were already long gone, tending to more worthy business.

"ON YOUR FEET, MAGGOT!" the soldier demanded.

"What the hell?! I think you popped one of 'em!" the scout doubled over in pain, hands between his legs and still on his knees.

"I SAID ON YOUR FEET, MAGGOT!" the soldier grabbed the scout by the ear and yanked upward.

"AAAWRIGHT! Awright! Jeez!" The scout painfully shot up on his own, instinctively trying to keep that ear attached to his head.

"Do you kiss your mama with that mouth, son?" the soldier demanded, still pinching that ear tightly.

"OW! Ow! Not so hard, fag!" the scout grinned through the pain.

"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION, PRIVATE!" The soldier socked the scout in the stomach with his free hand. "AND WHEN YOU ANSWER ME, THE LAST WORD OUT OF THAT NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP THAT YOU CALL A MOUTH WILL BE SIR, AND IT WILL BE LOUD! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!"

"Yes sir, Sergeant Cockfag, SIR!" The scout coughed.

"Well then I guess you leave me with no other choice!" the soldier started marching back to base, dragging the scout with him by the ear. "I can only hope that we have enough soap to wash out that filthy mouth of yours!"

"Woa! Woa! If you think you're gonna put soap in my mouth you've got another thing co-OOW!" the soldier gave another strong yank before the scout could finish. "Okay! I'm sorry! That's my ear!"

"It's too late for apologies, maggot!" The soldier gave the scout a little twist upon stepping through the nearest door. The scout cried out in pain, his upper body following the torque of the soldier's arm. "Learn to take your lumps like a REAL man before you start writing rubber checks with your mouth!" He briefly took a moment to turn his irritated scowl on the other men standing in a row right where he'd left them. "What are you num-nuts staring at?! Dismissed!" He hoisted the scout up under his arm and marched inside.

"Help me!" the scout pleaded them as he disappeared into the compound.

"I'll send my condolences to your mum, wankah!" the sniper gave the scout a little wave fairwell before shouldering his long rifle and strolling back to his camper.

"I need hair of dog." the heavy turned away from the afternoon's entertainment and pulled the remains of that bottle of vodka from his ammo bag.

"Couldn't agree with ya more, lad!" the demolition took back a long swig of whiskey from the bottle that he perpetually had handy.

The pyrotechnitian pulled a joint out from under his collar and lit it with the pilot on his flamethrower.

"Por que…?" he muttered, peeling off his mask and tremblingly bringing the reefer to his lips.


	4. Chapter 4

Normally, for the engineer, those machines that he had painstakingly designed, precision-fabricated and assembled were distraction enough from any of those pesky personal troubles. The guns would be back up in no time at all, tirelessly and efficiently pumping bullets into anything from BLU company that made the mistake of getting too close.

In addition, the defeated BLU occupation left a veritable treasure trove of abandoned equipment lying around that missile silo that they had poorly disguised as a distillery. Of course, for each downed turret, he had to run back to his shop for supplies of ammunition and spare parts. He figured that he might as well make it one trip of it if he hauled that busted teleporter back with him. Poor thing looked like it had been stomped on by an elephant, but the metal could still be salvaged.

The walk unfortunately let his mind wander back to sharing space with the soldier. Of course, he enjoyed it. But one also enjoys getting drunk. That spontanious whirlwind of intimacy and passion was something that came from a lapse in the engineer's judgement and strength of will. Hell, they even went their separate ways after the deed – returning to their respective bunks and starting the next day as they had started every day previous. Then the dumb son of a bitch went and told everyone that they had gay sex like they were in some kind of relationship, and now all the other men knew that he was a queer, and it was quickly dissolving their respect for him; respect that he had to bust his balls to earn because of his short stature and his lack of head hair. He should have just let the man be.

He tried to bring himself back down to the job at hand – but honestly, there was nothing to consciously think about – this was routine. He had salvaged metal and erected machines day in and day out for innumerable weeks and months – something that would be nearly impossible for anyone else, but he just had to be a genius and be able to solve all these problems of strategy and resource in his sleep. He was good at his job, and he prided himself in it, but now it felt like nothing at all. He couldn't bury himself in it like he could before with the weight of his mistake bearing down so heavily. He envied the soldier – who didn't appear to have the need to negate practical problems in order to protect himself – rather, he completely rejected reality and substituted his own.

He began to wonder where the soldier went, and hoped that he wasn't too broken up about the way he blew him off for the sake of reinforcing his masculinity to the rest of the team. Dammit, he was thinking about the soldier again. All he had to do was salvage this equipment and report back. He hoped that Ms. Pauling would keep the debriefing on the topic of that cluster-fuck of a battle, maybe fill him in on what happened to this tele-porter before he re-spawned, but knowing that administrator, his unprofessional discretion was bound to come up in the worst way possible. The engineer pondered shooting himself in the foot just so that he would have something better to worry about.

Back at the base, the hum of the ventilation overpowered any sound of the minimal staff's activity in the expanse of the complex. The engineer's workshop was adjacent to the incinerator room, and so as he drew closer, he noticed that the familiar smell of burning bodies had another element in it that he hadn't smelled in a long time. The door was still open, the otherwise dimly lit room glowing with the orange fire of the incinerator.

The pyrotechnitian had apparently finished his job early as well – the heavy weapon's specialist must have lent a hand, since he had over turned that bloody wheel-barrow that was typically used to haul carcasses, and was leaning on it, catching his breath and mopping his brow on his sleeve. Across the red spattered expanse of smooth concrete leading up to the incinerator, the pyro stood in front of the 4-inch thick glass window of the incinerator door, very quiet, his uncovered, slicked black hair an indication that he didn't plan on returning to the outside, smoking a cigarette, and supposedly staring at the burning bodies inside. The engineer hoped that he could sneak past them on his way to the shop without incident, but the heavy weapon's guy seemed to have a sixth sense about his surroundings, and twisted around to face him in an instant.

"Privyet, malysh!" the big man was sweaty and droopy eyed as usual, but his cheeks were rosey and he had an odd sloppy cheerfulness about him that was not exhibited outside of battle. He was cleary drunk, and he must have been forgeting to speak english. "Prihodite! Syadʹte s nami, tovarishch!" He extended one of his huge arms and beconned the engineer to sit down on a wooden crate next to them.

"Uh… howdy there, big fella. Ah'd love to stay an chat, but Ah got some work to do yet…" the engineer grinned nervously, held up his armful of twisted metal and nodded toward the door to his shop, not even a yard away.

"OH, COME OFF IT, Ya big fat LEHDEH! Ah got a bone ta pick wid yew!" the demolition slurred. He had apparently been there the whole time, sitting on the floor behind a large spool of steel cable. "Ah feel a song coomin on, annis bloody thing soonds like a wet cat bein slapped against a washboord!" he held the engineer's guitar aloft by the neck in one hand.

"Now what in the hell are you doin with mah gui-tar?!" the engineer dropped the broken teleporter angrily and speeded towards the group. He snatched the instrument from the demolition's hand and inspected it carefully.

"Aw, what did you do to her?! The strings are all loose! Ah oughta learn you a thing or two about respectin' another man's property!" The engineer quickly re-tightened the strings, absently seating himself on that wooden crate next to the heavy.

"HEY! Gallo! How you doin?!" the pyro always had the whitest smile, and his brown eyes were rarely open any wider than a squint. Now the smell hanging in the air was ringing a lot more bells.

"Good, partner. How bout yourself?" the engineer was still a might nervous about looking the pyro face to face after what had been seen. He absorbed himself in twisting the tuning pegs and minding the tension of the metal strings. It must have been the loco weed that made the pyro think that the engineer was still worthy of the spanish title for "Rooster".

"Much better now!" he cheesed and held up the half-smoked joint pinched between his fingers. "Take a hit, you look like you need it, mang!" he offered.

"Well, if yer gonna twist mah arm." The engineer smiled and carefully took up the offer without hesitation. This small gesture of friendship was enough to lighten the load of worry – it was good to know that, at least for the moment, the pyro didn't care about what he saw earlier. That, and the engineer really wanted to wind down, despite the impending meeting with the exec's. "Thanks, partner."

"Hey, it's all good!" The pyro shrugged. He watched the engineer take a long, smooth hit off the reefer, expertly hold it for more than a few seconds, then release it gracefully without so much as a tick. "Madre mi dios, Gallo! You smoke that like a pro!"

"S'been a while." the engineer leaned back slightly as he handed the joint back, his head already starting to swim in the smoke billowing from his mouth and nose. "With the number of years Ah spent in college, statistically there was no way to avoid bein' exposed to a wide managerie of illicit substances. Less juss say that mah 'higher' education referrs to more than just eleven PHD's." He stummed the guitar once, testing the sound. It was still a little off, so he went for the pegs again. "An' you know how Ah am about tryin' new things for the sake of science!"

"Did you take notes?" the pyro joined him in a chuckle, a new cloud of smoke forming around him as he passed the joint back..

"Actually Ah did – of course, once Ah came down from the effects Ah couldnt read most of 'em. Those were the days, Ah tell you what." the engineer held the joint in his mouth for a second while he stummed the guitar again, this time the sound was right where it needed to be. He took another hit. Those really were the days; away from home there was no distraction from his studies, and he was free to experiment in just about anything without shame, or worry about accidentally shooting up the barn again. He passed the joint back and started playing his usual low, steady tune. He did it almost to drown out the onset of the memories of what happened after he returned home.

"The burn was big wi' spate  
And there cam tumblein' doon,  
Topsalterie, the half of a gate  
An auld fish-hake, and a great muckle skate,  
And a lum hat wantin' th' croon – PLAY IN TUNE, YA BASTARD!" the demolition had a lovely baratone when he wasn't yelling and shaking people.

"HEY! Ah will play what Ah wanna play, WHEN AH WANNA PLAY IT, you got that?!" The engineer angrily shoved the demolition off and pointed a scolding finger at him.

"Don't fret, boyo! There's no need to shout!" the demolition threw his hands up sloppily, looking rather defeated.

"Davaĭte petʹ "Katyusha"!" the heavy chimed in.

"Ah don't even understand what you juss said!" the engineer turned his angry finger to the huge drunk bear standing in front of him. "We speak english in this country, so as a matter of courtesy act like you got some god-damned sense, bwah!"

The engineer huffed and returned his attention to the instrument on his lap. His thoughts again returned to the soldier, but now it didn't seem quite as wrong as it did before he started smoking. He at least still had the sense to avoid directly bringing it up, even though he was now almost totally consumed by the persistant image of the man's eyes. That telling, needing look that just tugged at him like a wayward child.

"Shoot. Ah don't know that many songs, so Ya'll are just gonna have to sit with it. Lemme at that whiskey, son." He knew he had to fill that awkward silence with something. He reached for the demo's bottle, and the demo obliged. He took a swig off of it and handed it back after shaking off the heat and wiping off his mouth on his sleeve. "Thanks, buddy. Ah git nervous singin' in front of people. Ya'll can sing along if ya know this one."

The battle-weary trio watched curiously as the engineer started off with that steady strumming again, figuring that the old Hank Williams was the most familiar to his compatriots. In all this time RED's company mercenaries had worked together, the engineer had played that guitar, but had never actually sung in front of the rest of the group. This didn't matter that much to him at all right now; he just needed to fill the air while he tried to get some enjoyment out of this calm before the storm.

"Hear that lonesome whippoorwill  
He sounds too blue to fly  
The midnight train is whining low  
I'm so lonesome I could cry…"

He didn't care if he was in key, or why he couldn't think of anything less damning; he had recently decided that nothing mattered. The other men exchanged some questioning looks, but it was unclear if they were thrown off by the song itself or the engineer's rusty singing voice. At the instrumental refrain, he just did his best to ignore them and play. It didn't quite sound the same without the steel, but he figured that it didn't matter either.

"I've never seen a night so long  
When time goes crawling by  
The moon just went behind the clouds  
To hide its face and cry…"

It just came out; this song that he originally learned playing along with the crackling old radio back in Tiny Bee Cave now resonated a little deeper than it did then - even than when it played muted, but almost knowingly as he first observed the soldier doing his compulsive one-person drills in the yard just outside his shop all those months ago. Every minute since then, he was both teased with further prospects, and tortured by them.

"Did you ever see a robin weep  
When leaves began to die?  
That means he's lost the will to live  
I'm so lonesome I could cry."

He knew that the soldier wanted to follow him to bed last night. But he pushed him back anyway. Even after all that. His logic then was to keep up the professional dynamic of the team – wanting desperately to avoid creating a monster. But the soldier quickly made this good-ol-boy realize that, despite his education and his hard knocks, he didn't really comprehend the true definition of a monster. A monster was the group of once-close boyhood friends that beat him up when they found out about his physical disinterest in girls, and how quickly word spread and ended up costing him his job of ten years.

A monster was that burning cross in his folks' front yard, and the incessant taunts, fights, and property damage from the same people he went to church with. A monster was what he became just before he went and shot up his best friend and the watering hole that everyone in the town frequented. What was unfolding now was nothing compared to that. This multinational team that he barely knew outside of work was far more compassionate than people he thought he knew his whole life – just because they didn't care. And that soldier – now he was all the engineer could think about. He struggled to keep his voice from cracking

"The silence of a falling star  
Lights up a purple sky  
And as I wonder where you are  
I'm so lonesome I could cry."

Once he finished, he noticed that the pyro and the demo were seated in front of him like they were listening to the gospel at sunday school – not a dry eye between them.

"Sorry fellas – was mah singin' that bad?"

"No, no, wey! That was beautiful!" The pyro sniffed, wiping an odd tear from his cheek.

"That was the saddest thing ta ever beset my ears, lad!" the demolition sobbed and readied for another drink. But then he paused and looked at the bottle angrily. "God! Why do aye even bother tryin' ta douse this pain anymore?!" he threw it and it smashed against the incinerator.

The heavy declined comment because he was absorbed in the delicate maintenance of his massive rotary machine gun and whispering sweet Russian nothings to it.

"Ai yi yi, you make me miss my family, mang!" the pyro, still recovering, dug around in his front breast pocket until he found the creased photograph of his wife and kids. He gazed at the thing forlornly as the demolition sloppily wrapped his arms around him.

"Aye miss yer family too, lad!" he said. "The cutest, most well mannered bunch of midgets I've ever had the pleasure of meetin', they were! And your wife – she's the kind that only poets of the highest caliber can properly describe!"

"Que?!" The pyro dried up quickly.

The engineer watched them carry on, and thought about playing another song – but seemed to have lost the motivation. He regretted getting so fucked up before a debriefing.

"Hey, are you guys gettin' high in here?!" the scout's voice cut through the sound of the pyro choking the demoman. When the group turned to look at him as he approached, they saw that he had a black eye, was soaked from the waist up, and someone had written the word 'virgin' on his forehead in what appeared to be felt marker.

"Ai, ching-ga! What happened to you?!" the pyro inquired, laughing loudly.

"That fuckin' soldier! That crazy S.O.B held my head under the fuckin' kitchen faucet and shoved a fuckin' bar of soap down my throat! THEN he had the BALLS to call me a brat – like he's my fuckin' dad and shit! Can you believe that?! I'm gonna be burpin' bubbles for a week!"

"Sounds like he's taken a likin' to ya, son!" The engineer couldn't stop himself from giggling a little. The others joined him in it.

"Hey, shut the fuck up, hard hat! You need to keep yer fuckin' boyfriend on a leash if ya know what's good for 'em!" the scout pointed.

"STAY ON TASK, MAGGOT!" the soldier's voice rang in from behind him. He shot into the room and appeared directly behind the scout, his grinning maw just barely an inch from the boy's ear, as if by magic. The scout immediately sprang to attention.

"Sir, yes, sir!" he shouted, his voice cracking awkwardly. He then stiffly adjusted so that he was properly facing the engineer. "Enge', I'm sorry I…"

"Louder, you sniveling fruit basket! The man has to hear you!" the soldier marched in and stopped an inch just behind the scout, the kid flinched under every syllable of the soldier's orders hitting his ears.

"SIR, YES SIR!" the scout shouted back fearfully. "ENGINEER – I'M SORRY I CALLED YOU A FAG!"

"AND?" the soldier yelled right into the scout's ear and the boy's face clenched painfully.

"AND IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN, SIR!" the scout was visibly fighting tears at this point.

The engineer was completely dumbfounded; looking at that skinny kid shiver, he wanted to say something about the abuse, but at the same time, he was taken by the effort put forth by the soldier.

"Uh… well thankye kindly, scout." the engineer said finally, after some seconds of gawking. "Weren't no harm done." He did have a gun to this kid's face earlier that day, after all.

"That's what I thought! For a while there, I thought you were going to puss out on me again, funny man! But today you've done me proud by doing the right thing." The soldier patted the scout on the shoulder, and the scout flinched under the sudden contact. "Now go dry yourself off, you disgrace!" the soldier barked and shoved him to the side.

"Sir, yes, sir!" the scout saluted, his face now clearly mourning the death of his own dignity. He barely got into his first step before the soldier gave him a hard boot to the seat of his pants that nearly knocked the kid off his feet.

"Double time, private! Hup to! Hup to!" he followed. "I want you in tip top presentation for that debriefing!"

The scout only whimpered something nonsensical and jogged off with the grace of a scared antelope with a ruptured disk.

"Now THAT is what I want to see! Putting the fear of god in my subordinates always fills me with pride!" While the soldier stood with his arms folded behind his back, watching the scout run away with a satisfied smirk on his face, all present drunk stoners looked on in utter confusion – several things came to their minds that should have been said, but their mouths just didn't follow through. The engineer in particular tried to take some initiative; he at least stood up.

"That warms my heart, soldier. But you didn't have to go an do all that. Scout's a young-un yet and Ah reckon he woulda come around on his own…" He felt the others' eyes upon him, and he had a feeling that embarrassing himself any further with the truth of what was on his mind was not something that they would appreciate. The way he wobbled under the influence of that Mexican weed and that cheap six-month-old blended whiskey must have been silly looking enough.

"Even the best chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and what holds this chain together is discipline! That kind of sass-mouth is a clear lack of discipline – and is therefor the gateway to COMMUNISM!" the soldier replied forcefully, and finished his lecture with a clear reference to the giant Russian man, obliviously sitting on a crate a yard or two away with his gattling gun positioned between his legs, deeply and sensuously inserting a long, bristled cleaning implement down one of it's barrels while lovingly rubbing his cheek against it's metal surface and caressing it's drive motor. "I tell you it makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it!"

The pyrotechnitian and the demolition were still sitting on the floor and gaping up at the soldier – they seemed to each have questions right on the tips of their tongues. He puzzled back at them for a second or two, then sniffed the air. "Smells like a paper mill in here!"

The pyrotechnic and the demolition snorted in unison and started giggling uncontrollably.

"What's so goddamned funny?!" the soldier demanded. "I've got half a mind to take both of your giggling skulls and crack them together! How funny does that sound?"

"Yoo've got half a mind PERIOD!" the demolition guffawed loudly and fell backward.

"Ai, Dios, detente! Mi lados daño!" the pyrotechnic threw up his hands, struggling to stop laughing.

"THAT'S IT! If I have to crack some skulls, I will!" The soldier shot forward and grabed the pyrotechnic and the demolition by the neck one to each hand. Luckily for him, their inebriation slowed their reaction time. The laughing didn't stop, so much as gradually quiet as their windpipes were constricted in their stupidly playful efforts to defend themselves against the soldier's furious strangling.  
"Hey, uh…." as much fun as it would have been to watch this unfold, the engineer was more interested in getting the soldier to himself – for at least ten minutes. Twenty tops. But unfortunately, that was unlikely to happen very smoothly at the moment, so he resigned to the work at hand that he should have been doing in the first place. "Ah gotta hit the old dusty trail – Ah never thought of buildin' machines that kin fix themselves…" he said. He carefully slung his guitar over his shoulder, swung it onto his back and started to navigate around the crate he was sitting on with some difficulty.

"Roger that!" the soldier's attention darted back to the engineer, who just barely stepped over that crate without falling over and went for the busted tele-porter that he dropped earlier. Once he had it, the engineer straightened dizzily and noticed the soldier standing right next to him. The soldier's latest disciplinary cases rolled on the floor in that same spot, coughing and gasping for air in their unexpected reprise.

"What kin ah do for ya, partner?" The engineer asked flatly, not entirely registering anything at the moment. In a way he expected the usual 'We need a _ here!' order.

"Don't concern yourself, civilian! I'm just providing you with an armed escort!" The soldier replied, strangely not holding a weapon of any sort, giving the engineer the odd mental impression that he wanted to hold his hand again.

"Alrighty then." He chuckled and resisted the urge to take the soldier's hand for the moment, instead continuing his walk back to the workshop. "Ah didn't realize that Ah even needed an armed escort while Ah'm walkin' around in the safe zone, mister."

"Standard procedure." the soldier replied again without hesitation.

"Since when? Ah thought 'standard procedure' was patrolin' the outside perimeter. It makes more sense to neutralize the enemy before they get into the base, am Ah right?" The engineer discreetly looked over his shoulder, just to make sure that the two of them had cleared the door.

"Are you questioning my methods, private cowboy?!" The soldier growled angrily, his arms flying back into that standoffish fold behind his back.

"Well – yeah Ah guess so." the engineer was never one to lie about anything, but in this instance he especially felt like he owed this kind of honesty to the soldier. "It juss seems a might strange that you'd be focusin' so much on mah safety over everything else all the sudden."

"Understood."

The engineer, once he processed what had just been said to him, was suddenly smacked upside the head with the realization that he never would have expected the soldier to back down from him. He instantly understood that he had just taken the perfect opportunity to hurt the man; that he had just jabbed the soldier in the most tender part of his exposed self when he had voluntarily just taken his chest plate off for the first time. He could almost feel the soldier's ivory tower creak, rumble and groan in imminent collapse when he noticed those loud boot falls come to an abrupt stop. He stopped and turned his head, catching the soldier at attention and giving a salute that was somehow more hard and cold than usual. Then in this painfully stretched moment, the engineer dumbly watched the soldier spin around, harshly drop his salute and lift one foot to start off walking.

The engineer instinctively stopped the soldier from leaving. It was one thing to keep things professional, but to flat out push the man away just wouldn't have been right. The two of them stood almost frozen in time with the soldier in mid step and the engineer anchoring him with his one free hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Hold on there, partner." the engineer tried to get the soldier's attention without rousing anyone else's.

"Yes, sir?" The soldier turned his head, but his face remained obscured by his collar and helmet.

"Shoot…" he felt like he had to say it, but he just couldn't. The very thought of putting that in front of the soldier filled him with fear. He hurried for the key to his workshop (not realizing that he had just dropped that chunk of twisted metal again in order to do so), but once the glorified garage-door-opener was pulled from his pocket, the hanger door already being open, showing that the overhanging florescent lights were on, reminded the engineer that the demolition had already been there. So he just stepped in, steering the soldier along with him and effectively forgetting all about the remains of that sad little teleporter. Once inside, he turned back to the soldier and carefully went for the hand hanging closest to him. Upon contact, the soldier's arm stiffened. The engineer, unsure of the reaction, again went with his gut and forced himself through what he had started, ignoring shame. He took a firm hold of the soldier's hand and looked the man straight in the face, finding the visible lower half of it was pursed in what could have been anger - or fear.

The soldier quickly squeezed the engineer's hand back. Again, supposedly just following. His grip was strong as ever, and the heat in his skin almost seemed to course it's way through the engineer's and even up through his arm. The engineer nearly forgot what he wanted to say. There were so many things and so many ways for them to come out wrong.

The five foot seven inch Texan yanked the six foot soldier through the door and quickly hit the control button, closing the door behind them.

"Ah don't …" The engineer started again, but found it easier to just tell him with his free hand. The soldier froze as soon as the engineer's fingertips touched the skin on his neck and lightly brushed the stubble on his chin, his expression shifting instantly from a scowl to a befuddled, straight-mouthed mask. The engineer drank this in for a moment, just barely able to see the man's eyes looking back down at him from under the lip of that helmet. They were so bright – clearly the gears were turning and he seemed primed for attack, but he did nothing. He didn't even make a sound. "… Ah don't mind you watchin' out fer me and all … Ah just…"

The soldier finally sprang forward and hugged the engineer tightly, lifting him off the ground. The engineer wrapped both arms around the soldier's thick neck, holding on in a strange, desperate joy as they pressed lips for nearly a minute.

"Aw HELL, Ah juss can't seem to get enough of you." the engineer broke away just long enough to say those words. The soldier released the engineer slowly and clumsily, breathing heavily and urgently searching the engineer for anything to run with. The engineer unbuckled the soldier's bandolier and pulled his coat away. Then he drove his hands straight into the slit, intoxicated by the issuing smell f the soldier's sweat. His body was just as hard and warm to the touch as before, and ticklishly retracted from the engineer's hands groping at them in that same way. There was no way in hell that this would ever get old.

The soldier pulled down the straps of the engineer's coveralls rather ungracefully. The engineer steered the preoccupied soldier toward one of his metal work tables and shoved him backward onto it, laying into him hard. He feverishly ground into the soldier, running his open palms up and under the soldier's t-shirt. Climbing up on him slightly, propping himself with one knee on the tabletop, he sweetly kissed the soldier's neck, and the soldier moaned lowly in between those shallow breaths. That initial heat and deep vibration was nice, but the engineer decided to go ahead and sink his teeth in just to gauge the soldier's reaction. What a reaction it was.

The soldier groaned and winced, but arched his body into the engineer and latched onto his shoulders with both hands as though he was trying to keep himself from falling. He growled and bucked his pelvis in a forceful and unrestrained manner. The power of those thrusts caught the engineer by surprise yet again, but he was soon taking a firm grip on the soldier's hips and taking satisfaction from the soldier's fervent moans as he thrust back, their arousals pressing onto each other through the fabric of their pants. This was not a comely position for the soldier to be in; he held tight to the engineer, almost using him as a shield as he lay there belly up. The engineer lifted his head from the soldier's neck to better access his belt, but found himself immobile. The soldier was holding on tight and shaking like a leaf.

"Relax, partner. It's only me." the engineer's low, smiling voice brought the soldier out of that prickling defensive trance. He almost impatiently pushed the engineer up and off of himself, pivoted back onto his feet and started unbuckling his belt himself. The engineer took this as open invitation to yank at the soldier's pants until the soldier, without a second thought, just started pulling them down. The engineer had to step back as the soldier kicked them off over his boots, but followed suit in unbuckling his belt and letting it fall heavily to the floor. Once unleashed, the engineer pushed the soldier back onto the table and kicked a short toolbox over so as to properly meet the optimum height for leverage. He ran one hand down one of the soldier's legs and lifted it at the knee along with him as he stepped up on the toolbox. All those daydreams finally coming into good use.

The soldier leaned back on his hands and the length of his erection pressed hotly against the engineer's stomach. The engineer shuddered as he was squeezed, then picked up a few small back and forth movements, not yet entering, but taking a moment to fully appreciate the sight of the soldier under him, his whole body shaking and the visible portion of his face still showing teeth as though he were in some intense stinging pain or out of breath. He soon felt the soldier's calloused hands on his backside, hungrily pressing him inward.

"Come on…" he demanded, though his voice was barely at the volume of a whisper. The engineer couldn't tell if the soldier's eyes were open or not under his helmet, but his feral sneer was a fair indication of his mood. It all happened so fast that the thought of applying a lube of some sort was effectively ignored, but once the connection was made, the soldier arched with a pained groan, the force of it sending streaks of lighting through the engineer's body. The engineer gave a few more hard thrusts, no longer questioning himself for getting a chuckle out of the soldier's failure to feel the difference between pleasure and pain. Seeing this intensely strong body rendered helpless under him filled the engineer with a playful vigor that he didn't recognize outside of working on heavy artillery.

"…You couldn't fuck your way out of a wet paper bag, maggot…" the soldier grimaced. It wasn't exactly clear if he really meant that, but it stirred the engineer up even more non-the-less.

The engineer responded immediately, pulling up the soldier's knee with the one hand, pressing hard on the man's shoulder with the other and driving himself in as deeply as he could, causing the soldier to tighten and throw his head back, opening his mouth to cry out, but lacking the ability to make a sound louder than a gasp. But he quickly settled back, his breath leveling out and his erection begging for someplace to go. Obviously the engineer felt the need to take it in one hand and give it a deliberate stroking, causing the soldier's upper half to suddenly shoot up grab the engineer's arms at the shoulder.

The engineer started to crumple under the intense pressure of the soldier's grip, but fought it as well as he could, letting the soldier moan and grind into him involuntarily. The engineer continued, watching the soldier's chest expand and contract, and that angry grimace transform into a snarling euphoria. The soldier was apparently too caught up in the sensation of everything to respond in even a remotely verbal manner. The engineer almost lost himself in this as well; the soldier was undeniably his now. This explosive, unsinkable killing machine was on his back, exposed and aching for him, pleading for anything and everything that he could give.

The engineer let himself buck harder as he elevated, finally connecting with the soldier's subtle language of hunger and pain. He almost didn't need to move his hand as the soldier simply bucked into it on his own. But not a few seconds later, the engineer erupted into the soldier and the soldier went off hard, shooting violently onto the engineer as well as himself, and throwing the engineer's rhythm with his spastic climax. He wrenched his body forward with a yelp and pulled the engineer in as tightly as ever as though the whole experience scared the living shit out of him. The engineer struggled not to fall backward. His head refused to stop spinning, even as he started to notice the uncharacteristic silence from the soldier as his body started to relax. The man's helmet fell off and issued a loud clank behind him when it hit the concrete floor.

"S'matter, soldier? Ain't you got nothin' to say?" The engineer huffed, figuring that he would always respond to a challenge.

The soldier's head rested limply on the engineer's shoulder – the only sound to come forth would be a soft snore.

"Yeah, it was good for me too." the engineer chuckled and tiredly lifted the dosing and now very heavy soldier off his shoulders and ungracefully let him flop back onto the worktable. With a weary sigh, he pulled away and stepped down from the toolbox. He pulled his briefs back up and when he went for this pants hanging around his knees, he realized that he probably shouldn't leave the soldier laying there exposed on his workbench like that. So once he had his shirt tucked back in, he patted the soldier's bare knee.

"Hey – rise and shine, soldier bo - AAH! DANGIT!" and once again, as soon as the soldier was alerted, he erupted from his prone position with a blood-curdling scream and ferociously attacked the first thing he saw. The engineer gave that startled shout just before he was knocked to the ground and rendered unable to breathe. The engineer barely felt the soldier's fist hit him, but still reflexively grabbed his wretch and swiped it against the side of his attacker's head. The soldier swung away, though still kneeling over the engineer.

"DAMMIT, IT'S ME AGAIN, YOU SUNOVABITCH!" the engineer shouted. "WHAT IN THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!"

"I'M SORRY! YOU STARTLED ME!" the soldier shouted back, rubbing the welt developing on the side of his head. In the engineer's opinion, he wasn't entirely justified in being angry, but at least it was a straight answer this time.

"Oh – don't even worry 'bout it, partner." The engineer let himself fall back, and reached down for his hankerchief now that he could feel stinging sweat leaking into his goggles and that his nose was probably broken.

The soldier stood up without any further argument and went for his pants – which had landed some feet away.

"Hey, partner…" the engineer got him to stop for a second.

"Yes, sir?"

"What say next time Ah tie you down?" the engineer grinned. "Ah figure imobilizin' your arms an' legs oughta decrease the overall likelihood of you causin' me any severe injury durin' cloitus."

"Roger that, Engie!" The soldier saluted with a wide smile.

The debriefing didn't go as poorly as it could have; the administrator spent most of the time yelling at everyone for slacking off on the killing end things. It was obvious however, that the old lady and her primarily female staff were well aware of the substance abuse and the curious new dimension developing in the team – almost as though they had been anticipating it, and had made minor adjustments accordingly on a need-to-know basis. The usual formalities and the piercing, harpy-like scolding had not changed since day one however. Keeping the focus on tactical mistakes was just more productive as far as the administration was concerned.

First and foremost – the heavy was killed six times over the span of twenty minutes because he wasn't watching his medic. This cascaded into a massive influx of bum-rushing BLU infantry that he normally would have kept mowing down if he had stayed alive for more than a few seconds at a time. The medic agreed wholeheartedly. He understood that he was not well liked among his co-workers, but went on to explain that he was the only man standing between his team and certain, horrible disfigurement and repeated death.

The heavy had his head down on the table and was snoring loudly, contributing little to the discussion and obviously taking nothing from it. The medic roused him with a sharp prodding and a few harsh foreign words. The heavy only growled and went back to sleep.

The lanky Australian man at the end of the conference table made his usual comment that re-spawn made the medic's job obsolete, rounding off his supposition by referring to the aging German as 'Herr Mengele'.

The medic then started shouting at the sniper in and out of a high-pitched southern German, impressing upon him that not only was he not the Angel of Death, but he was not a Nazi at any point in his life and he was in fact, an Argentine citizen. Of course, anyone that had seen his personnel file would have known that he had only been living in Argentina for nine years, and there were no records of his life before the age of 36 other than his birthplace in Germany. But corrections aside, the sniper was hardly doing his job either. The sniper simply scoffed, retorting that he ran out of ammunition and had to make due running around lobbing off limbs and throwing piss-jars – which take time to refill, by the way.

The engineer seemed to be absent from the battle for the most part. He wasn't seen being killed by many, but his body turned up all over the map – more than anyone elses' in fact. He did manage to build a dispenser in the barn and one end of that teleporter next to the enemy spawn point, but was killed immediately thereafter. Normally, the 'missing time' problem was often alleviated with open communication between men on the field, but since everyone was giving each other the cold shoulder for some bizarre reason (she coyly raised an eyebrow at the soldier on this note), the engineer ended up innocently running back out to the enemy spawn point four times, never getting around to re-stocking that dispenser or putting up the other end of the teleporter at base. In addition, he neglected to erect machines that would have been more useful to the rest of the team – like a sentry turret at the bottle neck leading to base instead of right next to the hanger door, or at least ONE medical dispenser near the control points instead of that one that he put up – again right next to the hanger door. She then proceeded to coldly interrogate the engineer, slowly rapping her long, talon-like fingers on the hard surface of the table, for the strategy behind arranging the machinery in said fashion.

The engineer respectfully explained that he had in fact, put a level three sentry at the bottle neck, but he had no idea what had happened to it – he assumed that it had been destroyed by the BLU spy. The administrator frustratedly rubbed her sinuses and told him that he never did build that sentry. Then she demanded to know why he thought that he had – he would have found it's remains in that case.

Well, to tell the honest truth, he had a rough night, and he apologized for not having his head in the game. His usual strategy was to just run around taking care of things as they came up, his own safety was never his highest priority. But this time around, since he had been killed so many times straight out of the spawn, he had no idea what was going on for the most part, and toward the end of the battle he thought that he was the only man left. He thought that his only option was keeping himself alive indefinitely and holding that closest control point until another RED came out of the re-spawn room. He didn't much like thinking about that – especially now that he knew the whole mess could have easily been avoided.

The soldier was no help at all – he stated bluntly that the engineer needed to stop acting like such a woman and learn how to fight. This whole team was really pissing him off in general with the drinking and the sass-mouth and the girlie giggles. Clearly the recent victories were causing the men to get cocky, let their guard down, get soft like a bunch of long-haired hippie faggots. This was no time for goofing off – if anything now was the time to really put the pressure on the enemy – to bring him to his knees and destroy him utterly – not let dames get in the way. The Demolition suggested that the soldier should actually read The Art of War before spouting orders to more able warriors like he knew his ass from a hole in the ground.

The soldier shot up from his chair and started shouting insults into the demolition's face – making the outlandishly ignorant presumption that he was a domestic terrorist working for come commie black nationalist organization.

The demolition furiously smashed his scrumpy bottle on the conference table and pointed the shattered remains at the soldier's neck, proclaiming that if he EVER lumped him in with black nationalists ever again, he would cut him down the middle and tan his lily white hide to make new upholstery for his Cobra.

Soldier promptly responded to this challenge; he sideswiped the demolition's head with his trench spade and spouted his hatred for him and for Scotland – calling it a seething breeding ground for transvestism.

The demolition came back at him without restraint; fists and broken glass flying, impressing that it's called a 'kilt', it's traditional, and that he might have known that the soldier had been inspecting his 'plumbing' at every opportunity like the cock-starved dandy that he was.

The meeting hardly paused for the ensuing carnage – it seemed that those two just couldn't be persuaded to share even the same building for more than a few hours at a time before they were literally at each others' throats. There was little the others could do – even if they cared enough to intervene.

The spy brought up the unusually high numbers in the BLU team. He attributed this to the nuclear power plant that they had poorly disguised as a grain refinery. This access to huge amounts of electricity definitely allowed them to spawn as many men as they wished. Although he also noted that the men on the other team seemed a little more 'dim' than usual. He was uncertain how to really describe what he meant until the scout announced that he ran into a BLU heavy that was screaming at the top of his lungs and spinning around like a man possessed, inexplicably tearing into his own team. It was an easy kill – but he almost felt bad about it – like he was putting the guy out of his misery.

The administrator rose from her chair at this report and ended the meeting with little explanation. Miss Pauling passed the men some file folders, hurriedly mentioning a BLU mining operation in the Pacific northwest that needed to be nuked before scuttling after the administrator with her cumbersome armful of paperwork.

The men were left assuming that they were being held responsible for their own transportation. Except for the soldier that is – he was busy trying to fight off the demolition, who had him on his back, apparently dropped trow and was now laughing and trying to slap him across the face with his flacid penis.

Casualties were not to be typically expected from a board meeting under most, if not all circumstances – but in this company, the Medic came to expect the unexpected – like the extensive dental lacerations inflicted upon the demolition's penile and scrotal skin, for example.


	5. Chapter 5

The engineer carefully stole longer and longer glances away from the road in order to appreciate the soldier's clumsily draped body as he slept in the passenger seat, slightly turned away, his head drooping towards the window, and his otherwise white shirt still lightly stained with grease and barbeque sauce. He was completely limp – even when relaxed his solid frame and musculature was very apparent in it's various bulging forms gracefully rising and falling along his limbs in the sinking twilight.

The engineer sighed tiredly and checked his rear-view mirror for what felt like the hundredth time since he peeled out a parking lot a few hours ago.

If they hadn't been kicked out of that truck stop the drive would have been far less nerve-wracking. But that damn yankee son of a bitch had to go and get into it with the locals over the usual thing. If only they hadn't been seated next to some folks that just happened to offhandedly mention the war in Korea in their own private discussion. Somehow the topic flew from the conflict in Korea – to the soldier's opinion that manifest destiny was still in full affect (except for that 'red commie planet', Mars) – then finally to his supposition that if anyone didn't agree, they were an idiot and that they hated America. Lucky for ol' rocket boy the engineer knew when to quit, and so they managed to pay their bill and get the hell out of there with little more than a few bruises, well before the police could have shown up.

The soldier always got worked up over politics – especially those pertaining to war. He became furious when the engineer yanked him out before he could get his point across. The engineer demanded to know what his point was exactly, and the soldier replied that winning the quick and easy way was no real show of a man's metal. He should have known that a civilian 'wrench jockey' wouldn't understand. The engineer didn't think that was a fair assumption, and went on to asked that 'crazy son of a bitch' needed to defeat a handful of unarmed civilians. The soldier insisted that they could hardly be called civilians with those kinds of 'backward pinko philosophies'. Then the engineer finally told the soldier that

"America is a free country and folks are allowed to say whatever the hell they want here, ya dummy! You can't just go around giving people a hard time just because they ain't in absolute agreement with ya! That's what FASCISTS do! We have that second amendment cuz people can't get nothin done fer shit if they're fightin' with each other over petty differences all the damn time!"

The soldier said nothing for nearly a minute. The engineer immediately felt awful for defeating him so utterly, but when he turned his head to apologize, he found that the soldier had been asleep and put his attention back to driving in a huff.

Whether the soldier wanted to spend the rest of his life with the engineer or not, there probably wasn't any possibility of the soldier ever leading a civilian life that didn't involve him ending up in jail – or the psych ward at some veteran's hospital if he was lucky. But the engineer entertained the idea every now and again. Even toward the end of that most recent tangent, he nurtured a quiet pride in being on the soldier's short list of allies.

He yawned, stretched out his right arm and rested it along the rear dash. After a few minutes of psyching himself up, the engineer very carefully brushed the soldier's thick neck with the backs of his fingers. The tightly trimmed hairs leading up the soldier's neck enticed the engineer's fingers to unfold and stroke them softly.

"Get that bowie knife outta my leg…" The soldier snored and stirred. He sloppily shifted his weight toward the engineer in the cramped cab of that old pick-up, rolling to one side and letting his head come to rest on the engineer's shoulder, trapping his right arm. As he nestled into his new position, one of his hands made it's way through the side opening of the engineer's overalls. He drifted back into that dream with nearly his whole arm cradled in the front flap and wrapped around the smaller man's waist. He was just as heavy as ever, and the sudden envelopment in the warmth of his body was fairly intense; but it was the brush of the soldier's hand across the thin fabric covering the engineer's vulnerable stomach that caused him to shudder in surprise. That arm felt huge across his body – and the hand cupped around his hip issued a sensation of…

The engineer realized that he had veared off the road and was now crossing the shoulder and into a cornfield. He swerved back onto the road and restrained himself with a nervous smile, trying not to rouse the soldier from this awkward position for fear of his own safety.

"…zzz…thanks, engie…" the soldier's voice was little more than a murmur this time, but it was said right into the engineer's ear. The tickling little fact that the soldier still didn't consider his relationship with the engineer as anything more than professional served to warm his heart in a way that only the soldier's brand of depraved innocence could.

It was extremely difficult to operate a stick shift with one hand stuck under the soldier, but the engineer had operated far more complicated machinery than this in his career. He made his way to a motel by nightfall by using his left hand and his legs to alternately steer and clutch and shift. The old truck haltingly came to a stop in the motel parking lot, a few loud and frustrating grinds issuing from the transmission that strangely did not rouse the soldier. The instant the engine went quiet however, the soldier jerked himself up, his four-hour catnap apparently a case of road hypnosis.

"Are we there?" the soldier snorted and looked around drearily, his hands up and at the ready.

"Not by a long shot, partner." the engineer could finally relax and limbered his stiff arm with a few pats on the soldier's back. "It's gettin' late, so Ah'm fixin' to turn in." he pointed his thumb backward toward the motel.

"Oh." the soldier sounded disapointed.

"Git along now. Let's get checked in, huh?" the engineer decided to proceed with pulling his keys from the ignition and turn for his door. "The sooner we get rested up, the sooner we can get on up to the rendezvous point."

"Yes, sir!" the soldier popped open his door and jumped out. He marched around the length of the truck toward the rear gate as the engineer casually came around from the driver's side.

The engineer noticed the soldier keeping watch while he unlocked the gate and pulled it down. He should have gotten used to his 'armed escort' by now – he stood there in the standard way with his feet apart but firmly planted, his whole frame stiff with a straight back and arms folded neatly behind him, but clearly bristling with anticipation of anything from any direction at any time. The man didn't even own civilian clothing – just went without his coat. He didn't even like going without his helmet – the only reason he hadn't been wearing it this whole trip was because the engineer told him he liked seeing his face.

"I think you meant the FIRST amendment, earlier." the soldier corrected.

"What now?" the engineer was busy untying various cords in order to free their luggage.

"The second amendment protects a civilian's right to keep and bear arms, sir. The first amendment is that which protects our freedom of speech." the soldier explained.

"Ah knew that." The engineer turned his head back as he pulled his suitcase from the truck, a little surprised by something so coherent coming from the soldier.

"Sir?" the soldier was watching some bushes rather closely.

"Honey, Ah'm from Texas. In Texas, the law doesn't protect your rights so much as your gun can." The engineer explained coldly, releasing the soldier's ruck sack from the tangled mess. "You understand mah meaning?"

"Yes, sir." the soldier quickly looked back out into the darkness.

If he really did understand, that very well could have been why the soldier had never been far from the engineer's side since the day they first met.

"So… uh… you wanna go halves on a room?" the soldier barely turned his head back to ask the question at a low volume.

"What for, soldier?" the engineer held out the soldier's ruck sack absently.

"DAMMIT MAN! You know EXACTLY what for!" the soldier barked and yanked his things from him.

"Well, pardon me mister." the engineer chuckled. He was inclined to think that the soldier just wanted to be with him, share a bed and so forth. But it was probably more likely that he didn't want the engineer out of his sight. Either way, it was best to keep it ambiguous out here in the open. "Sure, Ah'll go halves with ya."

The teenaged clerk looked up from her magazine as two men walked in. The taller one looked like an army commando with a broom up his ass and his accomplice looked to be the shortest cowboy she had ever seen. He seemed nice though.

"Yer sign out there says you've got a vacancy?" the cowboy smiled.

"Yeah – we've got two rooms, but they're not next to each other. Do you mind?" she leaned over the counter and smiled back, still chomping her chewing gum.

"Oh, no - we just need the one." the cowboy explained.

"Are you sure? I mean, where are the Indian and the Leather Guy going to sleep?"

"WHAT? WHERE?!" The army guy spun around and pulled a gun.

"WOA! Easy there, partner!" the cowboy immediately pushed the barrel of the army guy's handgun to the floor. After a brief struggle and some barely audible swearing between them, the army guy shoved the cowboy off and put the gun away in a miff.

"What's that look for, mister?!" the cowboy scolded. "Don't make me an asshole for trustin' you with that damn thing!" he waved a finger at the other man before turning back to the reception desk.

"You'd have to pry this gun from my cold, dead fingers, you pussy!" the army guy glowered at the cowboy, who had already moved on - gone for his wallet and pulled out some bills for the clerk.

"Ah'm real sorry about that, ma'am. Don't pay him no mind – he's just a bit touched in the head."

"Why do you keep telling people that?!" the army guy snapped.

"So what were you meanin' by that, anyways?" the cowboy inquired, still ignoring the army guy. "It's just the two of us, here, and Ah don't recall mentionin' that we were waitin' fer anybody."

The clerk let out a loud sigh of dejection, her cutting topical observations of their looking like part of the village people was totally lost upon these meat heads. "Nevermind, here's your key."

—

Once he wrangled the soldier into the room, the engineer shut the door behind him and deflated immediately in the relative safety, locking the door with a sound of tired relief. It was the same manner he often had in locking the door of his workshop after a battle – even down to pulling a rag from his back pocket and mopping the sweat from his head.

He saw that the soldier was still pissed in the way that he roughly threw his ruck sack on the bed and marched for the bathroom with a few angry, grumbled syllables.

"Wait a second now, partner!" the engineer went after him.

"I AM NOT YOUR PARTNER!" the soldier shouted and slammed the bathroom door behind him. "CONSIDER MY SERVICES TERMINATED!"

The engineer felt like he had just been shot through the chest; he could not move for what seemed like an eternity. It took everything he had to fight back.

"WHAT THE HELL FOR?!" he shouted, his anger the only thing distracting him from the pain. He ran up to the bathroom door and tried the knob. It turned fine, but something was blocking the door from opening. "Come on now – open the door!"

"ACCESS DENIED!" the soldier shouted from inside.

"Ah juss want a word with ya, soldier! Let me in!" the engineer tried to sound calm, but he was now pushing on that door with his whole weight.

There was no response this time, but the door still wouldn't budge. The engineer leaned on the door for a long moment, catching his breath. He still didn't hear anything from inside – but he knew that the soldier was still in there – blocking the door. Being separated from him by a mere two inches of wood filled the engineer with a kind desperation that he hadn't felt in years, and he relieved it only slightly by pounding the door with his fist.

"DAGNABBIT, AH'M SORRY!" he shouted. "YOU HEAR ME?! Ah'm sorry!" he stopped pounding in hopes of hearing something – anything. But nothing – not even movement. That's when the tears started. "Ah said Ah'm sorry…" This was what he had been dreading since the beginning and it was far worse than he could have ever imagined. He wracked his brain trying to figure out how he could have fucked this up so badly – he knew that he was upsetting the soldier by trying to take his gun away – and even more so by calling him crazy. But he was so concerned with protecting himself that he didn't give it a second thought. He felt like shooting himself right then and there, but a small part of him knew that the soldier needed him now more than ever. The man was hurt so badly that hiding was suddenly a preferred tactic to violence. He had never seen the soldier run and hide before.

The engineer pulled that pack of Marlboros from his pocket, opened it and put one to his lips. There was no sense in wearing himself ragged trying to out muscle the soldier when he could just wait for him to calm down. With a flick of his zippo, he lit his cigarette and took a long swig off of it.

"Ah reckon uh… hell, soldier Ah just wanna say that you're probably the best friend Ah ever had in this world." He blew a long plume of smoke from his mouth as he spoke to the door, still leaning on it heavily. "Shucks, Ah guess that oughta say somethin' about how many friends Ah got, huh?" Usually a self-defacing poke like that would ease tensions, but not this time, unfortunately. He looked at the floor.

"Ah can't explain the why's or the how's in all this, but since Ah met you, Ah've taken a real shine to ya, mister." he fought his voice cracking. "Ah mean, me and the pyro make a pretty good team, but fer some reason Ah always got more satisfaction in keepin you armed and watchin' you fight… and seein' you come back in one piece." he shook his head to fight the tears. He took another puff off the cigarette, beginning to regret letting so much pour out.

"You made me a happy man when you let me kiss you the other day, soldier. Ah woulda been just as happy if you beat the hell outta me, but you didn't, did ya?" He let a few steady streams leak from his eyes on this note. "It ain't really my place to ask why; my papee always told me never to look a gift horse in the mouth. All Ah can say is that Ah never felt more like a man than during those times Ah was makin' love to you." he couldn't help but find a little humor in those words coming from his own mouth. "Ah just…" he struggled to just let it out. "Ah ain't had a home to go back to in years, soldier, and bein' with you kinda made me feel like Ah did." The tobacco was helping a little, but only enough to keep him talking. In a small way, with the pain already out of the way, he felt more free to speak his mind than at any other time.

"Ah juss wished Ah coulda done the same for you." He sniffled and took another puff and watched the white smoke billow up around him again. "Ah'm sorry Ah called you crazy like it was a bad thing, cuz it ain't, soldier. It just ain't. Bein' crazy is what makes you such a good soldier, you hear? Ah don't know of a man alive what would dive head first into a fight and laugh in the face of his own death the way you do, soldier. Everything you do, you give a hundred percent, and you keep givin' it like there's no limit. To be perfectly honest, Ah wish Ah was as crazy as you." he felt like his lungs had been completely vacuumed flat, and yet he could not breath in without feeling like a loud sob would come from it. He took a moment to wipe off his eyes with his sleeve.

"Dagnabbit, you got me leakin' like a damn faucet, here…you win soldier, Ah'll give you yer space if, that's what you want…" the engineer pulled off the door, trying to think how he could make the rest of the road trip less awkward.

The door opened without warning and the engineer spun around at the sound. He saw the soldier standing there with the door half open, his eyes glaring at him as angrily as they often did, but his face was sopped with tears. The two men stood there looking at each other dumbly for a long moment.

The engineer felt like he was being thoroughly scanned, and hoped that the soldier would accept what he saw as a harmless non-enemy at least. He wanted to dry the soldier's face, hold him in his arms but was too scared to move.

Before he knew it, the engineer was being pressed into the soldier's chest harder than he even thought possible. He frantically hugged the soldier back with everything he could muster. There was no hope of keeping the soldier locked to him forever, but he felt like he had to try anyway. The soldier was drenched with sweat and his heart was racing hard like he might have been scared half to death.

"You are PATHETIC!" the soldier was obviously trying to keep up that tough front, but the crying was still in his throat. "You are THE sorriest cowardly sack of scum I have ever SEEN! If you know what's good for you, you will not leave my sight. Do you understand that?" he hugged tighter for emphasis.

The engineer couldn't breathe, but did his best not to panic. He couldn't get the 'yes sir' out of his mouth, so he just nodded. The soldier at least noticed the engineer's struggle and loosened his grip enough for a little air to get back into him.

"You couldn't pry me off with the jaws o' life, partner. You can bet money on that." the engineer smiled in his immense relief, thanking each and every one of those lucky stars and letting himself melt into the soldier's chest. "Just don't shut me out like that ever again. Ah don't think the old ticker can handle it."

The soldier grumbled and rested his chin on the engineer's head. His arms relaxed and his hands made their way around the engineer's back. One moved up and palmed the engineer's neck, and the other ended up tucked inside the back of his over-alls, spreading open from his lower back and just barely reaching his backside. The strength in those hands felt like the heat off of a forge, and the rush of it caused the usual tightness in his underwear.

It was probably wrong to be thinking about sex at this time. But many would also say that it was wrong for a grown man to find safety and comfort in the form of another man's strong body.

"Lemme make this up to ya." the engineer put the cigarette out against the wall and slipped his hands under the soldier's shirt, spreading his fingers across that rock hard back. "Ah figure that's only fair, right?"

"Do what now?" the soldier wasn't sure how to react to the engineer dropping down and unbuckling his belt. "Wait a minute, what are you..?"He watched dumbly as the engineer fumbled around down there until the Texan's calloused fingers dove into his underwear and started stroking him. "OH! I get it now…carry on…" he inched his feet apart and let the engineer pull out his half-erection and start licking the tip.

The next series of noises he heard coming out of the soldier was like sweet nectar. The engineer enthusiastically took the head into his mouth and rolled his tongue around the ridge. The soldier's hands spread across the engineer's shoulders and his fingers searched for the skin just under his button up shirt through the neck. As one hand cupped around the back of his head, the engineer took in nearly the whole length of the soldier's suddenly very rigid manhood and bobbed back and forth a few times. It may have been too much at once for the soldier – he dug his nails into the engineer's skin and started bucking his pelvis. The engineer yanked away to save himself from choking.

"Why'd you stop?!" the soldier demanded as the engineer stood back up.

"You carry a big gun, soldier boy." the engineer laughed and started undressing. "Bit off a might more than Ah could chew there, is all. So Ah'm gonna turn around and you're gonna fuck me." he dropped trow and turned around.

"Yes, SIR!" the soldier positioned himself between the engineer's legs as he backed into him and took a vice grip on his hips.

"Take it easy, partner, this is mah…OW!" the engineer was interrupted mid sentence by the soldier ramming into him. The pain was indescribable, but he couldn't escape if he wanted to. "Dagnabbit! Ah said, TAKE IT EASY, YA JACKASS! This is mah first time playin' catcher, you understand?!" he half-yelled, half-cried.

"GUHhhh…" The soldier leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the engineer's torso, his body shuddered with his efforts to keep his hips still. But it was plenty calm enough for the engineer to relax and accommodate him. The two of them braced in silence as the soldier slipped deeper into the engineer. Feeling another man heave and pulse through his whole being was a sensation that the engineer never expected to enjoy this much. It was strangely comforting in a way, feeling all that heat from the soldier's body draped over him and the power in his arms holding him in place.

"That's the way, partner, juss start out slow an' AH! don't let me..AHhh.. don't let me fall…" the soldier did not know restraint, but he could follow orders. He held the engineer close and tried a few deliberate thrusts. The engineer leaned into him, reaching one arm up and taking a loose handle on the soldier's neck, taking each hit like a badge of honor. It was only fair. He reached down and clasped his other hand around his own arousal and started stroking it, causing all that stinging pain to fade into heated pleasure.

The soldier growled impatiently and started thrusting harder and faster, cleaving into the engineer roughly and clearly fighting the urge to chomp down on his neck. Sweat dripped from his chin and his breath escaped him in great steaming intervals in the engineer's ear. The engineer grunted painfully, but urgently squeezed back, the soldier's pitiful moans spurring him into a strange feeling of need for him. He found himself wanting more of the man inside of him, like it completed him somehow. It was disturbing how right it felt to be filled with the soldier's fury. It was so right that he collapsed from his collected demeanor and erupted with a yelp.

"You wuss…" the soldier grinned viciously, no where near finished with him.

"Pardon me…" the engineer panted and shook his head. "Do what you gotta do, sol— AAAHH!" he quickly came to regret saying that when the soldier bit him. But it was probably for the best – the soldier's final thrusts were comparable to industrial machinery, and staying joined became a real challenge. Once it was over however, the soldier suddenly became very heavy and the engineer braced to keep him up as he fell both out of him and out of conciousness.

"Dagnabbit, soldier!" the smaller man huffed and shuffled toward the bed with his best friend still draped over his back. Once close enough, he let the soldier slide off of him and flop onto the mattress like a 250lb sack of potatoes.

The engineer took a moment after pulling up his pants and looked the sleeping soldier over. He was so peaceful compared to what he was a moment ago - an insane angel with the engineer's blood still coating his lips. He smirked with the satisfaction in knowing that he endured that man, then still had the muscle left to carry him a few feet. He knew better than to try and wake him up, so this time he just put a pillow under the soldier's head and stiffly limped off toward the shower.

"Night, babe."

–

On his way to the compact shower the engineer would notice the soldier's handgun on the laminate sink counter. The manner in which it was happenstantially lying on it's side made it appear as though it wear pointing accusingly at him as he closed the door behind him.

The engineer pondered why such a treasured possession would have been left out in the cold, then saw himself in the mirror. With his hanging coveralls held up by his one hand and his flannel shirt ruffled, bloody and half-unbuttoned, he looked as though he had just been in a fight. And that bite made the first one look like a nibble. That damn soldier had a taste for blood that was beyond explanation.

Once refreshed, the engineer dried off, wrapped the towel around his waist, took his keys from his pants on the floor and walked past the soldier. He was still fully clothed, and still awkwardly stretched diagonally across the mattress, snoring like a sawmill. The engineer cautiously made his way out the door and towards the first aid kit that he had innocently left in the tuck, fairly certain that no one would be out at this hour, but keeping a good peripheral just in case.

Once he got to the driver side door open, he took the kit from under the seat and upon looking back up he saw that young clerk standing outside in her nightie, huddled close to a corner just outside the main office. She discretely lit a cigarette and immediately tried to dissipate the smoke upon her first puff by frantically waving her hand. She couldn't have been older than fifteen, so the engineer made the assumption that she was doing something that she shouldn't have been. He figured that he should just leave her to it, and tiptoed back to his door. Then he realized that although he remembered his truck key, he left his room key inside and was now locked out.

The half-naked engineer dropped his forehead against the door and let out a tired sigh.

He knocked on the door and waited. A moment later he would be greeted with the sound of a shotgun being cocked. It was well known to him that the soldier always answered the door in this manner.

"STEP AWAY FROM THE DOOR!" the soldier shouted.

"It's just me, partner." the engineer tried to keep his voice down, but decided to step away from the door anyway just in case. "Ah went to get the first aid outta the truck and Ah locked myself ou-"

"What's the password?"

"Password?! Now wait just a god-damned minute, mister! You never told me there was a password!"

There was a pause.

"Point taken." the door swung open and the engineer was greeted by the helmeted soldier and the twin barrels of a shotgun. The soldier acknowledged the engineer with a nod and stepped out, cautiously checking the right and left and rear for unseen danger.

"Hands where I can see them, maggot!" He caught that girl clerk in his sights and in an instant she threw her hands up, dropping her cigarette onto the ground.

"Dagnabbit! This ain't a war-zone, and that ain't no way to treat a lady, soldier!" The engineer shouted.

The soldier only glanced at the engineer, his posture remaining stiff and poised to gun down that figure yards across the way. "Precautions, private! When you're this far away from the green zone, you can never be too careful!"

"Stand down, dammit!" the engineer smacked the soldier on the back of the head. It seemed to be enough to get the point across.

The soldier paused, finally turning his head and staring the engineer down, his mind obviously grinding hard on what he said.

"My apologies, ma'am!" the soldier dropped the business end of his weapon and waved the all clear. "Carry on!"

"Screw you!" The girl dropped her arms and shakingly picked her cigarette back up.

"Just what the hell do you think you are doing out here, private cowboy?! You are unnarmed and uncovered! You were practically ASKING for this injury!" The soldier turned his attention back to the engineer and pointed at that bite on his shoulder.

"But…. You did this." the engineer still found humor in this somehow.

"…" the soldier was about to yell something else, but stumbled. "So I did." He then pivoted to the side, stiffly presented arms, and made way for the engineer.

The engineer chuckled and went inside, giving the soldier a hearty pat on the arm. It was almost a sweet return to the old days of emotionally distant professional normalcy after the repeated instances of more and more passionate gay sex.

"Mind if Ah ask a personal question, soldier?" Something occurred to the engineer, and what better time to ask than halfway down the road.

The soldier acknowledged him with an affirmative grunt as he turned back into the room and closed the door behind him, then started the task of making sure the door was locked and taking one last look through the blinds.

"You got a special lady waitin' for ya somewhere?"

The soldier instantly turned around and another awkward stare-down was initiated.

"Ah don't mean nothin' by it! Ah'm just askin' you straight up, partner." the engineer shrugged to hide his fear.

"No sir." the soldier broke away and leaned the shotgun against the wall near the bed while he went about the business of removing his outer clothing for the night. Seemed strange that there wasn't some kind of self-righteous rant to justify that statement. But he didn't exactly sound sad either. The engineer sat down on the edge of the bed, still watching the soldier and struggling to interpret his behavior as he routinely undressed.

"Well, why not? You ain't such a bad lookin' buck…" The engineer absently opened the med-kit on his lap and felt around inside, all the while watching the soldier's torso bend and flex as first that shirt was peeled away and neatly folded, then his belt was addressed. He was confronted again with how much more 'rounded off' his own physique was in comparison to the soldier's.

"The field of battle is no place for a lady, private cowboy." the soldier stated flatly and folded his trousers on the bed. "Even you should know that."

"Yeah, I reckon it ain't." the engineer went with that, finally looking down and finding some alcohol swabs. "So uh… Ah guess what Ah meant was, … have you ever? Ah mean – before you went to war?"

"Of course! Many women have been graced with my presence, private cowboy! They just can't resist a man of my strength and character!" The soldier proudly straightened and orated. "But LADY LIBERTY is my one true love, son. For her safety, I will forsake all others without hesitation!"

The stinging alcohol sanitizing that open wound stung like eight bitches on a bitch boat, but the engineer was more interested in getting a straight answer from that damn soldier.

"Have you ever been intimate with a woman, mister?" the engineer flatly addressed the subject.

"oh…" the soldier paused. "Sure, I have! One time I even got her bra off!"

The very thought of this man fumbling around with a woman's bra was more tickling than the telling evidence that he may have been a virgin. For all he knew, it could have been at a strip club – possibly an accidental entry into a womens' locker-room somewhere. He should have been ashamed of himself for making such cruel assumptions. But given everything he'd seen the soldier do in civilian situations, he wasn't.

"What's so funny, private?!" the soldier stood angrily with his feet apart and his hands on his hips.

"Don't tell me that you ain't never gone further than that!" the engineer started laughing. He had no idea how to cross examine the soldier without getting a half-truth on the facts of the matter. He wasn't even sure if he should feel bad for the soldier, or for any of the women who were 'graced' with the soldier's 'presence' whatever that meant.

"W-Have you?!" The soldier demanded.

The engineer's sides were aching, but he managed to control himself for the sake of being polite.

"Yeah – once er twice." the engineer recalled those instances as though he were looking at someone else's life. "Prolly no where near the number of conquests that a ten-pointer like you woulda had…" He snorted, still struggling to stifle the laughter. Remembering his first time, and then the social aftermath at Tiny Bee High School the next day helped to slow the giggles substantially. "S'funny the kind of things people expect you to know when you're fresh outta the gate. Shoot…" It was much easier to look back on that now that he had a solid ten or more degrees under his belt than any of his classmates, but it wasn't exactly fun either.

"Women are a peculiar breed, private cowboy!" the soldier climbed under the covers as the engineer finished covering his shoulder with gauze. He took a moment to settle in, lying on his back and locking his hands under the pillow "They don't use logic like you and me. They'll do anything to get attention, and then once you give it to them, they act like they never wanted it in the first place! THAT'S what your problem is! You haven't got the PERSERVERANCE to REALLY get anywhere with women! The truth is that women don't know what they want! YOU have to be FIRM and TELL them what they want! That's your DUTY as a man! But NOW thanks to those PANSIES in Washington, women are getting the idea that they have some kind of CHOICE in the matter and that they're somehow smart enough to know better than a man! Can you believe that?! If GOD wanted women to have a choice in ANYTHING, he would have made them properly in the first place!"

The engineer just sat and stared at the soldier for a moment.

"Who needs women anyways?" the engineer said finally. He felt more free to play along in this instance than at any other.

"Yeah! All they're good for is making more men!"

—

The engineer would wake up the next morning at six thirty when the soldier shoved him out of bed and initiated his usual strict morning ritual by making sure that the engineer was fully awake;

"RISE AND SHINE, MAGGOT!" he shouted and started his morning warm-up streches. "NEVER FACE THE DAY LYING DOWN!"

–

This already well established BLU territory had to be approached with caution; the engineer parked some distance off in the pine-covered hills and readied his gear. The rest of the team was undoubtedly already down there in the valley trying to poke holes in the enemy defense, making some way for their engineer to reach the nearest control point. It was pretty funny how BLU had the same habit of leaving such crucial strategic equipment just lying out in the open. Even so, attacking was far more dangerous than defending; the engineer would have to scuttle into a safe spot quickly and establish friendly re-spawn before any of the other men were killed. It was the best way to avoid them appearing hundreds of miles away at their previous base and being of very little use.

The soldier enacted his usual ceremony of strapping up his fatigues, donning his helmet, stiffly loading his shot gun, then his rocket launcher, then neatly arming himself with said weapons as well as a few hand-grenades (which the engineer had come to assume as being purely for decorative purposes) and then presenting arms to some imaginary superior and yelling "HOORAH!" at the top of his lungs, causing an eruption of scared birds from the surrounding trees.

"Let's see here…" The engineer unrolled that map of the proposed enemy base and lay it flat on the truck bed, securing the corners with a few heavy rounds and a lunch box. "Ah suppose we could go in this way since there's a…"

"ATTAAAACK!" The soldier was already off – bounding at top speed down the hill and disappearing into the growth.

"Dagnabbit, you dumb son of a bitch!" the engineer abandoned his plan and hoisted up his tool box. "You're fixin' to get yourself killed, mister!" He started huffing and puffing after him.

"Set up base HERE!" the soldier stopped dead in front of the engineer, who collided with him and bounced backwards onto the ground.

"Godblessit!" the engineer landed hard and struggled to unpin himself from under that heavy toolbox.

"Just what in the hell do you think you are doing, private?! On your feet! DISPENSER HERE! TELPORTER HERE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!" The soldier stomped and pointed at various spots on the ground. The engineer looked around – in his haste he hadn't noticed that they had arrived at a concrete retention wall, and the soldier was standing only a few feet away from an enormous storm drain – which more than likely led straight under the BLUs' base of operations. He supposed that the soldier wasn't entirely lacking in planning.

"Comin' right up." The engineer set to work deploying a dispenser right off as the soldier then turned for the entrance. "An' try an' stay alive until Ah can get in there, okay soldier?"

"Understood!" The soldier saluted. Then he spun around, swung his rocket launcher over his shoulder and fired one over the wall. The resulting explosion on the other side shook the earth and sent a few more errant birds and small debris flying upward.

"What in the hell did you do that for?! You might as well be kickin' a damn hornet's nest!" the engineer scrambled to finish the dispenser upon hearing some shouting from behind the wall as the explosion dissipated.

"Shock and awe, civilian! What kind of namby-pamby worries about a harmless hornet's nest when there's an entire army on the other side of this wall waiting to kill us?! Get with the program!" The soldier wasted no time in pointing his weapon at the ground and firing it – using the explosive thrust to launch himself upward and over that retention wall.

"Dagnabbit…" the engineer watched the soldier disappear. Then quickly grabbed as much metal as he could when he started hearing more yelling and gunfire.


	6. Chapter 6

Mann Co. was notorious for supplying weapons of mass destruction and other unsafe and impractical technological wonders to just about anyone who had the cash, so the RED and BLU factions had grown mutually accustomed to operating under the pretence that they each would be utilizing identical arsenals, strategies, even complete copies the same mercenaries, which in itself was downright bizarre, but a detail often overlooked for the sake of everyone's sanity. At any rate, at this stage of their constant territorial skirmishing, the outcome of each battle now depended more on each man's basic attendance and sheer dumb luck than upon each member's skill or firepower. Destruction of property and frantic, bloody combat had become as drudging a routine as any nine-to-five that the men could have gotten instead. RED and BLU in fact had apparently been warring with one another for more than a century, and Mann Co had now become their exclusive mutual supplier. At this stage in their corporate histories, Mann Co's patented control points were simply manufactured en mass and then randomly placed on virgin land. RED and BLU had supposedly signed some contract years ago that required them each to pay a monthly fee for the opportunity to seize those pre-assembled points for their company's control, anyone who failed to pay their subscription would be shot on sight.

Over the past few weeks, however, a few subtle, but exploitable differences between the factions had begun to surface; BLU now outnumbered RED almost four to one, but a few of the individuals popping out of BLU spawn seemed to be a few rounds short of a clip. Obviously, some of their mistakes in tactical judgement could be attributed to the missing time syndrome to which neither side was immune. But the more extreme examples of behavior, such as inattentiveness, inexplicable lack of motor skills, and the occasional suicide had some RED members scratching their heads.

The engineer did not have anything to do with the invention of re-spawn, but he was responsible for maintaining the technology for his company. He understood that the process was extremely complicated, and of course, unimaginably expensive, so there was a limit to how many times each man could be re-created from stored information. Like all things, information when stored on magnetic hard drives degrades over time and repeated duplication. ONE inconsistency in the information, even something as seemingly inconsequential as a single binary character among qua-trillions could cause enormous flaws in the fabrication process of a human being. So to minimize risk, RED resolved that re-spawn only allowed for one of each man on the field at a time. BLU obviously didn't opt for this restriction, and now the consequences of that decision were becoming apparent.

RED engineer had to quietly make his way through the sewers in order to set up the exit for that teleporter in a good spot. The path was suspiciously clear, but the sounds of a raging battle above him suggested that his soldier was attracting all the BLU attention to himself. That old familiar dread now started to creep up on him again. He knew for a fact that the man's death would be his own damn fault at this stage, and it wasn't going to be permanent. But the soldier's death and his possibly missing out on the rest of this mission would not only be a major inconvenience to everyone, but the soldier would undoubtedly blame it on the engineer, and more than likely give him the cold shoulder again, if not beat him to a bloody pulp. The engineer usually didn't notice his hands shaking this much. Best not to think for the moment, just solve the problem.

The engineer deployed a teleporter just below a man-hole. He wasn't entirely sure where it lead aside from out and into the sunlight. After a quick peak, he found that there was a control point not too far away, but there were several BLU sentries already in place as well – he nearly lost his head when three of them opened fire.

"Dammit dammit dammit!" RED engineer angrily plopped back down and started heading back for that intersection he passed, hoping to find an alternate route, and kicking himself for giving away his position. He really should have brought that map with him.

He saw some light at one end of the intersection and followed it until he came upon another intersection – an abrupt right turn at the apex of which was a small room whose two walls were occupied by some control panels and a blue mass which…

RED engineer ducked back into the tunnel and pressed himself flat against the wall at the sight of BLU figures. Hopefully he wasn't seen and he could possibly take them out in an ambush; he heard voices, but they sounded – preoccupied with something. RED engineer pulled out his shotgun as quietly as he could – taking a loose grip and lifting slowly, then pulling the hammer back, waiting for the click. At it's sound, he swung out and around to meet the enemy with both barrels pointed right at them.

BLU soldier and BLU engineer were both pressed upon one wall with their backs to him. RED engineer took aim - a whole two seconds passed before he realized that they weren't interested at all in the control panel; as in their pants were down and BLU soldier was grinding BLU engineer into next Tuesday.

RED engineer almost lost his nerve. This was beyond looking at himself – this was looking at everything he hated about himself and his own sexuality. Flabby, fish-belly white flesh aside, the fact that they were fucking right here and now while their base was under attack disgusted him way more than it should have. There was always a possibility that he could give in to his urges at THE worst possible opportunity, but he never really figured out what the worst possible opportunity could have been until now. To add insult to injury, he found himself examining the possibility that he could have awakened the same potential in the soldier. He would have remained blissfully unaware that THAT kind of irresponsibility could exist until he saw THIS. Even now, as they began to notice him, he felt that he was spending too much precious time looking at their bodies pressing into each other.

"There but by the Grace o' God!" RED engineer fired once, a shotgun blast from two feet away was powerful enough to blow off the top half of the BLU engineer's head.

BLU soldier spun around, springing into action so quickly that RED engineer almost didn't register that he turned back into the RED spy. His pants were still down, however, and the smell of sex and blood in the air should never sit right with anyone anyway.

"LORD almighty!" RED engineer dropped his arms down and turned his head completely around to avert his eyes.

"How did you know it was me?" RED spy asked calmly and pulled his pants up, but didn't bother trying to fasten them before he pulled out his cigarette tin. "Zere is an er.. inconsist'auncie, in my technique? No?" That smokey, but somehow still silky smooth voice never hitched even as he inserted a cigarette into his lips and lit it.

"Nope. Ah didn't know… GA! Pen that darn thing up, mister!" The Engineer started to turn back around, but his eyes went straight for the other man's private parts.

"Ah – zee comparison of my penis to a presumably large barnyard animal – running rampant and requiring physical restraint… hon hon hon!" The spy threw his head back and laughed that usual, first throaty, then snorty laugh. "Laborer, your colorful rural colloquialisms – they amuse me so!"

"Quit flirtin' with me and do somethin' about all them sentries up top, French fry!"

"And now, I am zee greasy fried stick of a potato…" The spy frowned and zipped up his pants finally. "Zis new assessment … it causes me such pain…"

"…right here." RED soldier took RED engineer's hand and pressed it into the open chest of his flack jacket, so that skin touched skin.

"You are sittin' on a keg o' dynamite, spy." RED engineer immediately pointed his shotgun at RED soldier's face with his free hand. RED soldier changed back into RED spy and he released RED engineer's arm.

"Is just a little bit of joke to lighten the mood, monsieur. A low-brow such as yourself would normally relish such crude humor." RED spy huffed and went on his way. "Zee machines are most vulnerable without ze builder … and so I thought to myself – why not have a little fun? You working types are so simple-minded. It is like er… how you say… the cat playing with the mouse." The spy disappeared into the tunnel, leaving his engineer both confused and completely numb inside.

—

At the beginning of his new career some time ago the engineer had devised a simple, linear protocol for his sentry guns which dictated their behavior in combat – detect target – shoot target, etc. But since the first prototypes detected targets with motion detection, many days and weeks of collateral damage and testing would then result in hours upon hours of mechanical modifications (cameras and CPU's instead of motion sensors and mechanical triggers) and data entry – data which would allow the sentry distinguish a BLU target from it's surroundings, and then take action toward that target accordingly. Of course, this tinkering eventually led to the engineer's supposition that he would need to work in a way for information to be recorded by the sentry through means aside from a cable jack and a keyboard, and then equip the thing to automatically process said information into it's behavior protocols. Building his sentries with a capacity to learn was more of a move towards convenience; manually entering all those lines of script was about as fun as watching paint dry on a hot Texas afternoon. What really counted in the field was real-time tactical input, be it from voice command prompt, or from other sensory stimuli. By now these machines had the science of killing advanced as such that no feeling human being could come close. They worked with perfect precision and tireless execution; if they couldn't get a lock on an enemy's head, they would take out their legs. There was no fear involved, no sadism; just target neutralization. Independent problem solving. To the engineer it was a beautiful thing.

RED engineer frantically repaired the sentry shielding him from heavy gunfire. RED pyrotechnitian was diligently throwing huge plumes of flames in all outward directions at their furious BLU attackers and kicking away the occasional grenade. The dispenser behind them was keeping them intact, but each of those $200 custom rounds was worth three of the sentry's comparatively dinky 50 caliber rounds. After several minutes of onslaught where-in one or two scouts or spies would succumb, the engineer finally re-adjusted the twin rotary barrels with a rough shove.

"Take down those damn medics first, dummy!" he shouted over the din. That sentry beeped it's acknowledgment and shot a line of metal slugs into a BLU medic. The much higher pitched German screaming over the bellowing laughter of those two heavies offered little comfort as they came closer, but once the medics were down, each of those burns and unhealed bullet-wounds actually started to count in RED's favor.

One of the heavies died as often expected; the Russians were never known to back down peacefully, and they usually lacked any kind of strategy aside from simply advancing, using their bulk to form a wall with their big ol' sausage fingers holding down the trigger all the while. But the second, out of bullets and his now shattered legs collapsing under him, let out a final roaring shout and threw his minigun forward, a simple innovation which caught the engineer off guard. Those huge impractical weapons weighed well over five hundred pounds even without all those enormous rounds loaded. There was no question that the little RED men needed to dart backward and watch helplessly as their sentry was smashed.

"SENTRY DOWN!" The engineer shouted over the deafening noise now encompassing this control point. He pulled his shotgun and took aim at the Russian still stubbornly crawling toward the point.

"I AM COMING FOR YOU!" That huge man was like something out of a nightmare – aflame, bloody, mangled, on his belly, but still dwarfing the engineer and eying him intently, showing his grinning maw like a hungry hell-bear. The engineer shot him in the face and he finally collapsed at his feet.

"Gotcha, Pork-drippin's!" the engineer huffed and wiped the curtain of sweat and blood from his brow.

"EXCELSIOR!" At the sound of another approaching battle-cry, the engineer quickly ejected the empty shell casing and took aim at a flaming ball of BLU soldier. He dropped him with two shots, then turned his attention back to that sentry, which might as well have been a pile of scrap underneath a boulder.

"Dammit…" the engineer was still catching his breath, but at least he still had that dispenser up and the control point now blinked into red under his feet. No sense in crying over spilled milk.

"ALERT! Our second control point has been captured!" BLU's administrator sounded oddly familiar as she usually did.

The RED engineer let out a sigh of relief, knowing that the point was now locked down for RED. Two down, one more to go.

The RED pyrotechnitian raised his flamethrower over his head and celebrated in the usual manner – dancing in place and laughing like a man possessed. Then a baseball flew out of nowhere and bounced hard off of his forehead. It didn't render him unconscious, but the loud groan and immediate cradling of his head indicated that he was momentarily stunned – possibly blinded.

"THAT'S RIGHT! It's BONKIN' TIME, chuckleheads!" A BLU scout shouted from a rapidly shrinking distance.

"ALERT! THE FINAL CONTROL POINT S BEING CONTESTED!"

"Well it's about damn time…" the engineer shot at that BLU scout, emptying the shotgun into the kid's chest. Then there were three again. "Aw hell! Let's git along now!" he holstered his shotgun momentarily to pack up. The pyro shook his head and acknowledged the engineer with a defensive wall of flames and a few muffled words of resolve. Once loaded up, the engineer immediately started scuttling for control point number three, the pyrotechnitian running backwards and covering their rear with a wide cone of fire.

At the scream of an incoming rocket, the pyro quickly grabbed one of the engineer's shoulder straps and yanked him around a corner, saving the both of them from the ensuing explosion. The engineer stumbled momentarily, trying to get his bearings, and the pyro simply shoved him forward, his muffled voice still urgent, but reassuring with one hand pointing straight ahead.

"Thanks, partner!" The engineer nodded and got back to hauling ass for the next point, which, judging from the red flash of another explosion, was just yards away around another corner.

"..I AM ON FI-AARR!" That BLU soldier screamed in pain and the RED pyro laughed maniacally as he dowsed the man in flames.

"Get on ze point, dumkopf!" The RED medic joined them from an intersecting path, taking a position between them.

"Where else would Ah go, doc?" the engineer huffed.

"Why, to HELL, of course!" The medic's voice suddenly changed.

"SPY!" the engineer yelled, quickly dropping his gear in favor of his pistol and spinning around to take aim. But in that fraction of a second, the pyro had already been fatally stabbed and the spy slipped out of visual range just as the engineer fired his first shot. "WHY - YOU - LOW - DOWN- DIRTY - GUTLESS - COWARD!" the engineer shouted and fired almost the entire clip trying to hit that invisible spy, and finally got him at the last one.

"That oughta learn ya." the engineer reloaded and holstered his smoking pistol. He looked at the body of the pyro, lying face-down a few feet away. There was a time when he would try to apologize for not saving him in time, but these days there was no sense in wasting his breathe on a final farewell that wasn't truly final. He hoisted his gear back up and started off again up a steadily rising hill. The new exit of that teleporter wasn't going to deploy itself.

Even with RED medic and heavy artillary pushing through with that Uber-charge, the team still had their hands full; there were plenty of BLU to go around and the scene that the engineer came upon was a massive cluster fuck of explosions, gunfire and burning bodies. He positioned himself on a spot overlooking point number three and unpacked that dispenser first thing, then the teleporter, then finally a new sentry.

"Somebody's sappin' my dispenser!" He heard some electrical discharge and angrily turned his wrench upon another invisibly spy. It didn't take but a second for metal to meet skull this time – that yellow bellied son of a bitch could only move as fast as his relative mass and velocity would allow, after all.

Then back to work again, pumping up that sentry. He took out a soldier and a demolition or two, then another set of medic and heavy with a newly added rocket launcher. There was so much blood on the ground, all those blue uniforms stuck out like sore thumbs. Of course it became overwhelming again pretty quickly when a BLU soldier launched himself out of range and came screaming back down towards him. In a panic, the engineer fired his shotgun, but missed. The BLU soldier landed and tried to hit him with a shovel, but the engineer managed to duck. Then the soldier was suddenly shot with a single bullet between the eyes and he fell to the ground in a heap.

"DIS-MISSED!" RED sniper took a moment to mockingly salute with a wide grin.

"Nice shootin' there, partner!" The engineer straightened and tipped his hard hat to the man now standing on top of the dispenser behind him.

"Wot kind of sniper would I be if it wasn't? A DEAD ONE, that's wot." The sniper cocked his weapon, shot, cocked, and shot again in the span of that sentence. "HA! Would ya lookit that! He's bleedin' gravy!" he laughed at a chain reaction started by his bullet striking a heavy right in one eye, who alarmingly did not die instantly, but rather started spinning his minigun in all directions, crippling his own medic as well as a few other BLUs in his panic.

"YEW! YES YEW! STAND STILL LADDY!" RED demolition guffawed, sloppily ran up behind the BLU heavy, and shot him up with sticky bombs. With a swift boot to the seat, the RED demo sent the BLU heavy careening into a few more of his own team mates and blew up the lot of them. "YER ARSE IS GRASS AN' AE'M THE GRASS-MAN! …PUNK!" he slurred.

"NICE WASTE OF BLOODY MUNITIONS, YOU SPINNIN' ONE-EYED YOBO!" RED Sniper waved and yelled.

"YOO KIN TAKE A SPIN ON ME NOB, YA WHOORE!" RED demolition yelled back and grabbed his junk provocatively at his Australian team-mate. "OH Ae kin see ya lickin' yer lips! GO ON, DRINK I' IN WHILE YA CAN!" then he caught fire and started shooting off his sticky bomb launcher at anything that moved. The BLU's avoided him for the most part, but the explosives had been deployed non-the-less.

"Good night, Irene!" the Engineer looked on at the windows of various buildings blow out from the RED demolition's projectile explosives, unable to help a chuckle at that mess; a BLU sniper flew out of one window, a BLU engineer out of another.

"MEDIC!" the RED soldier's voice rang the loudest to the RED engineer up on the hill. He was shot up pretty bad, but still advancing for the point – literally digging his way across the BLU field with that trench shovel. He was possibly out of ammunition, but he often resorted to hand-to-hand combat whether the necessity existed or not; swinging that shovel in what looked like a frenzied manner, but every swing landed a deliberate hit to an enemy skull or midsection. That damn soldier was an odd, masterful madman – jamming the handle of that entrenching tool into the awaiting barrel of a BLU rocket launcher, causing it to explode, but ignoring the shrapnel and using that BLU soldier's freshly headless body as a springboard up and onto the point.

"ALERT! Our control-point is being captured!"

Almost everything was on fire down there; RED demolition eventually succumbed to two BLU pyros that managed to escape his grenade launcher and slam an ax into his chest. With their quick footed masters, BLU flamethrowers seemed to be causing most of the problem – except for one standing out from the group with his face to the wall like a statue with one of his gloves on his head. Then his head exploded. RED engineer didn't register the loud POP right next to his head until

"Crikey, it's like they don't even care anymore." RED sniper reloaded his rifle.

"Well then let's cull the herd, shall we?" RED engineer nudged RED sniper with his elbow as he cocked his shotgun.

RED sniper often bragged about how he learned how to make full use of his natural senses from bush-men, and for that reason he never had a need for a spotter. But he was never heard complaining about having a good nest and a second set of eyes and ears – in the mist of it anyway.

RED pyrotechnics finally materialized on the teleporter and braced for a moment, there was a lot to see and fear here.

"Git along now, partner! We're almost done here!" the engineer turned around to meet him with a smile in between shots. The pyro gave him the muffled 'aye aye sir' and took off down the hill, setting fire to a row of BLUs.

"WOA WOA! What's goin on here?!" RED scout popped out of the teleporter almost immediately afterwards.

"Shut up and get on that point down there!" RED sniper obviously getting irritated with the amount of distraction.

"You heard the man! Hop to it, Jackrabbit!" RED engineer pushed the scout off the platform and shooed him down the path that the pyro had just created.

There was a crack from a high-powered rifle some distance off, followed by a high-pitched scream near the point. "Take THAT, you German whore!" The BLU sniper that killed the RED medic was standing on top of an empty train car and sounded different – like he had his nuts taped up or something. He also appeared to have a pony tail and … dark colored lipstick.

RED sniper took him out easily, but a shudder still overtook him. "Thanks for givin' away your bloody position, wankah!"

"OHH NOOOOOOO!" That kind of desperate sound coming from the RED heavy over the noise of his gas-powered rotary gun meant that with the medic down, he was having to go back into his berserk-kamakaze routine for keeps. For a man that supposedly hated everyone, he sure got awfully upset whenever the medic was killed. But the engineer had seen the man get equally upset over missing that ice-cream truck the previous week.

"Ah gotta move this gear up!" RED engineer turned for his dispenser and poked the sniper perched on top of it. Without the medic, RED was doomed to failure under these conditions.

"Right-o." The sniper hopped down and started loping off for the water tower.

"Keep them BLU fairies off my back." The engineer gave that sentry a pat and it abruptly turned to him, pausing to point it's sensors directly at him for a solid second or two. Strangely there was no standard beep that would indicate orders received.

"Now don't you give me that look!" The engineer had been seeing a lot more of this 'off' behavior ever since he had started introducing human interface protocols. "Our boys need some dog-gone help!" He hurriedly packed up the dispenser and hoisted it up.

The sentry started beeping up a storm and whipped it's barrels around in all directions, almost as an indication that there was some kind of flaw in the engineer's logic of leaving it on such a conspicuous platform. It was a pantomime that it must have learned from the pyrotechnic at some point. The engineer began to regret introducing it to the concept of self-preservation.

"DAMMIT! Ah built you to do a damn job, understood?!" The engineer gave the sentry a kick and it quickly collected itself – beeping twice and pointing itself firmly toward the point. "That's what the hell Ah thought, ya over-grown pop-gun!" He started down the hill at the best speed he could muster with that heavy load.

The control-point was only a few yards away, but the ground between it and the engineer was a mine field. The engineer less than gracefully just started running for the point weaving through bodies and grenades, the sentry on the hill taking out what it could in his path – and a sniper or two that were out of sight save for the trajectory of their bullets. He could feel BLU bullets smacking the dirt around his feet, missing him by inches; his own sentry never missed. Everything it fired upon yelped or exploded.

Then a stray from some distance off slammed into his arm, then another grazed his ear. A BLU rocket missed him and blew a crater into the ground behind him, the force of the blast almost knocked him flat on his face. He stumbled, but did his best to ignore the wounds and just run. No sense in sweating over near-misses. RED Scout and pyro had already gotten trapped and gunned down by a big BLU sentry, but RED heavy and soldier were now on the point; the indicator light at their feet fluctuated between red and blue as they stood back to back fighting off BLU after BLU that bore down on them.

Heavy turned that sentry into swiss cheese, but looked like he was really suffering from the heat and strenuous cardiac activity as he often did toward the end of a mission. That damn soldier never slowed down; his being covered head to toe in red made it hard to tell how much was his – even if it was, he would never show anyone any openings, no weakness.

"Dispenser goin' up!" The engineer shouted and threw his gear forward, the box fell open on the ground just a few inches from the point and the dispenser started unfolding itself on it's own. As soon as his hands were free, the engineer pulled his shotgun, there was barely a moment to catch his breath before he had to use it. Artificially accelerated healing was always a strange feeling – the sharp pain of open wounds shrinking into dull nausea. His heart pounding out of his chest from all this adrenaline wasn't much help either. He almost lost track of where he was, but in the midst of emptying his gun, everything started slowing down.

"ENGINEER IS CREDIT TO TEAM!" The RED heavy artillary took in a deep breath and threw a clenched fist into the air as that pink mist started washing over him. Sasha started shooting air, so the big man just used her as a 500lb+ extension of his fist, smashing her down on a BLU pyro, who flattened almost instantly as though he were made out of paper.

"YOU SORRY SACKS OF SCUM CANNOT HURT ME! I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO FEEL PAIN!" The RED soldier straightened up like someone had just shoved some fresh batteries into his back. He threw his shovel up over his head with both hands and brought it down onto a BLU soldier's head with a scream, cleaving down the middle of his enemy's helmet and issuing a fountain of blood. The spade stuck, so he kicked the now lifeless BLU soldier's body to the side to free it. "COME HERE, SALLY!" With a laugh he then swung the spade flat against the face of a BLU medic that was trying to come at him with what looked like a curling iron for some odd reason.

By the time the RED engineer heard that telltale electrical discharge, a BLU spy hand already slapped a sapper on that dispenser and had stabbed him in the back. Unlucky for that spy, he missed his spine and lungs; RED engineer cried out at four inches of steel plunging into his shoulder, and his knee-jerk response was to whip out that twenty pound wrench and start swinging. He landed one hit, and he heard a grunt, but the invisible man was far from finished. RED engineer received another cut, this time landing just outside his collar bone, again not causing enough immediate damage to stop him from fighting back. He swung low and hit the spy in the leg, judging from that snapping sound. He followed the sound of the man's pitiful screams in order to more accurately strike his head until the spy's cloaking device stopped working, revealing the bloody mass that he had created. RED engineer's wounds stopped closing; the engineer's lung had been punctured, and he was now finding it harder and harder to breathe in. The dispenser was down.

"You wanna capture my point?!" BLU scout ran up and tried to hit him with a bat, but RED engineer had just enough left in him to swing back at him, a loud clank rang in the air when their weapons collided. "You can't capture my point!" BLU scout came in again, this time hitting RED engineer in the gut. "What the fuck are you thinkin', man?!" BLU scout knocked him down even further with a hard strike to his back. "BONK!" and again.

RED engineer reeled from the impacts, but used his first returning sense to grab that cotton t-shirt, pull BLU scout down to his stooped level, zero in on that face, and smash his forehead right into it. BLU scout fell backward and RED engineer stood over him, gripping his wrench, slippery with blood in both hands. Once he was satisfied with the kid's neutralization, he turned his attention back to that dispenser without a second thought. The sapper came off no problem, but immediately most of the machine's inner workings actually needed to be replaced, and the RED engineer was miles away from shop. He did what he could, trying to re-wire the thing's power source and at least get that healing tank back online, but it was completely fried, and his hands just weren't doing what he told them to. Every time he breathed out, blood clogged his windpipe and he could no longer breathe air back in.

"HAIL COBRA!" A BLU soldier fired a rocket.

With an angry scream, RED soldier ran off the point and brandished a shovel.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! GET ON POINT!" RED heavy roared angrily at the retreating soldier, but could not let his fists stop moving.

RED engineer, still preoccupied with trying to fix that dispenser heard a clank, then felt himself being jerked away from his work. He didn't feel much after that or see much more than red, but he could still hear at least one explosion and the heavy calling someone stoopid over and over.

The engineer tried to get his bearings, but he wasn't sure if he was even standing anymore. All this water was making it mighty hard to even stay upright – and it was freezing to top it all off. As soon as he caught sight of the surface he started paddling for it, but his injuries wouldn't let him. In this state, he must have missed how the place flooded this bad, and how he came to be by himself all of the sudden. Just as he had come to accept his eventual drowning, a dolphin jetted towards him – an honest to god dolphin clear as day. Somehow the engineer thought he heard the word 'maggot' in all those squeals and clicks as it swooped in and grabbed his arm in it's mouth. Didn't seem to be trying to hurt him, though – it just grabbed hold and started swimming even harder in a straight upward thrust. Even though it hurt, the engineer wrapped his body around the sleek animal, eventually finding a grip on it's dorsal fin for dear life against the pressure of the water rushing past them as they approached the light of the surface.

When they reached the surface, it suddenly didn't matter that the engineer's lungs were full of blood. He shot out into the air with a deafening spash and coughed until the air rushed in and stayed there, as though he had taken his first breath in a week. The dolphin settled and chirped a few playful clicks through its blowhole.

"Thanks, mister." The engineer patted the dolphin, but was saddened to see the ground coming back up at him as the water receded. That poor thing saved his life and stayed with him even though it wouldn't last long on dry land.

"Dumkopfs." RED medic administered treatment to the engineer draped over the RED soldier's back.

"YOU FAILED!" The administrator scolded over the loudspeaker. What followed was an immediate uproar of both cheering and pitiful cries for mercy as the BLU company scattered. Demolition and Pyrotechnics were already celebrating – locked at the elbows and dancing in a circle, shooting off fire and grenades without regard to anything but the expression of their hard-earned victory. A few happy cracks from a sniper rifle being fired into the air could also be heard.

"RUN COWARDS!" RED heavy's voice rang triumphantly over all others from the control-point as he started laughing and cleaning house with his fists.

"Quit screwing around and finish the fight, men!" RED soldier abruptly dropped RED engineer and spun around to shout at the rest of his team on the ground. "NO mercy! NO prisoners! Women and children first! I want this perimeter secured and clean enough to eat off of… I'm thinking ribs…potato salad…" he carried on barking orders as he marched down the hill, ignoring the little aftershocks and mercy killings that were happening around him for the sake of maintaining that stiff march and that nonsensically confident string of commands. The engineer rolled back up onto his feet and dusted himself off, all the while reassuring himself that the soldier probably had no idea who he was talking to either.

"AW MAAAN! How could that fat bastid cap the point instead of me?!" RED scout had apparently just re-spawned on that teleporter, and he looked like he might cry.

"I vas going to ask you the same question, useless svinehund!" RED medic snarled at him.

"Yeah, I love you too, deutch-bag." the scout's mood lifted when he saw BLU's running away. "Hey where are you chuckleheads goin'?! I'm just gettin' started with my battin' practice over here!" He zipped after them with his trusty bat.

–

Over the course of that blazing afternoon, subcontracted RED construction crews were called in and moved quickly through the compound. They unceremoniously cleared the debris and finished up their repairs with a fresh coat of red paint. All the while a few of the locals would wander onto the site. Most appeared unmoved, casually driving up and watching the activities with binoculars. RED soldier obviously did not allow this; as soon as he caught sight of them he ran after each one – kicking over their coolers and beating them senseless with their fold-up lawn chairs. Whether they were BLU spies 'disguised as' suburban families with children or the elderly or not, RED soldier could not take risks when dealing with 'commie terrorist sleeper cells'. As for the angry local environmentalist group storming the front gate with picket signs, the administrator handled them with poise and diplomacy – and a fire hose.

This was only a refinery/depot for the mining operation a few miles higher up. There were plenty of toppled buildings to get lost in, and a few rail-lines stretching through the place for those train cars stacked full of ore. There was no incinerator on site, so the pyrotechnic just gathered all the mangled bodies together in big piles and burned them outside. It would not be so lonely a job as it normally would be, since a good number of the RED contractors were cousins and nephews of his. It would not take long for a radio to be plugged in and the air would be filled with the festive sounds of a Mexican music station as well as those of heavy machinery, clinking hand tools, and crackling bonfires.

The remaining BLU staff were either killed as they tried to escape or captured and retained for questioning and/or medical experimentation. Obviously, the regulations laid out in the Geneva Conventions could hardly be practically applied to the internal proprietary and competitive practices of private companies. Or at least, that was the card most often played in court.

Recommissioning enemy bases happened fairly often – as in some bases would be RED for a few days and then BLU and then RED again by the end of that week, depending on the relative value of that location. The value of course, changed erratically according to climate, politics, random executive whims, etc. And though the men on the ground were free to make their own judgments, they were discouraged from asking questions – just do what they were told and they would get a pay-check. That was a fine deal for most of them; they were already used to the idea that out on the battlefield, in the bush, the mean urban streets, down in the belly of some machine, thinking, or talking too much got you killed. Having feelings got you into even worse things than that. The perfect example was presented to the RED engineer on a silver platter today. Just when you thought you knew where the line was, you could always count on the french to point out just how pitifully naive your assumptions were.

The engineer brought the truck around and started salvaging the remains of machinery peppering the place. BLU engineer obviously had the same number of degrees as his RED counterpart – they were both copies of the same person after all. But the BLU hardware had just enough tiny shortcomings in the craftsmanship to really rub RED engineer the wrong way while he was salvaging them. It used to be that all he needed was his little wiring kit and some red spray paint, but nowadays he might as well be salvaging old tin cans. Maybe it was just the stress of the workload – or that thing he saw in the lower decks that afternoon.

That scene seemed to be sewn into the insides of his eyelids – growing even more grotesque with each recollection. He knew that he was looking at a mirror image and so in BLU engineer he saw all those awkward, apelike qualities and they caused him to examine himself. He knew that he was hairy and pudgy and clumsy looking, but seeing the flesh jiggle right there in front of him made it all the more revolting. And the look on that man's face, pressed sideways against that panel, his heated breaths condensing on the cold metal made his stomach want to turn inside out. His face was beet red and speckled with beads of sweat and his lips were pulled back from his teeth as though he were smiling and grimacing at the same time. He didn't like the idea that he probably made a similar face when the soldier fucked him the night before – it just looked as though the BLU engineer was enjoying that pounding a little too much.

In his experience, RED engineer knew that 'too much' was a relative term, but hearing himself whimper under the forceful thrusts of a larger man; actually relishing the act of surrendering the most vulnerable part of himself to anyone, soldier or otherwise, was just too much for him at that moment. There was no good way to explain it; deep down he wanted to know how in the hell they decided to fuck right then and there – what was said beforehand, and why the engineer just gave into him completely like some innocent schoolgirl. Now he knew that it was RED spy the whole time, but at the time he didn't. At that time he didn't care if it didn't matter and that it would have been a more sensible strategy to kill the BLU soldier first. He just hated that BLU engineer that much at that moment.

Even after the spy openly told him that he was just taking yet another opportunity fuck with his head, the engineer found himself questioning why his soldier even kept indulging him. At first he wanted to think that the hand-job really was just that good, but there was always a nagging doubt in the back of his mind. It couldn't have been a mutual attraction, but it was beyond curious at this point. Perhaps it was obligation, pity, or some other bizarre, nonsensical reasoning that was far beyond his understanding. But these thoughts eventually pointed to the soldier just not knowing any better. Maybe the engineer just needed to come to terms with the fact that he was a disgusting pervert that had corrupted an imbecile. Still, he took comfort in the soldier silently patrolling a twenty foot or so radius around the truck while he worked, despite the fact that the base had been fully secured and he already had a sentry mounted on the truck bed just in case.

This tender moment would only last for so long before the scout came along and started a mock parade behind the soldier singing 'what can you do with a dirty soldier'. The soldier was startled at first by the noise, but was quick to spin around and try to backhand the scout across the face. When he missed, he then proceeded to chase the scout around in a circle, all the while pelting him with insults and gruesome threats.

"Ooh! I'm real scared! What's the matter? Can't you see where you're goin under that lid of yours?" The scout darted around him, smacked his helmet right off of his head, and kept on running. "Oops! Look at that! Come on man! Look at this! You seein' this? I'm runnin' circles around ya!"

"You are in a big fat hurry to get your ass kicked, private!" The soldier shouted and kept grabbing for the scout as he mockingly dangled himself in front of the thicker man, hopping backward at the last second before each strike.

"Missed me! Oop! Almost got me! Come on, retard, you can do it! AWW! You are TERRIBLE!"

"If you know what's good for you, you will surrender my helmet this instant!"

"Oh this? You want this?" the scout waved the object and jogged a wide circle around the soldier, who had stopped and was just eyeing him angrily with his fists balled at either side. "I don't know, man! I kinda like it! I think I might keep it!" he laughed and on the soldier's helmet. "See? It looks better on me anyway!"

The soldier then whipped out his pistol and took a very deliberate shot at the scout's feet. The scout instantly dropped to the ground with a yelp.

"OH MY GOD! YOU SHOT ME!" the scout rolled around on the ground, gripping his gushing foot in both hands.

"OF COURSE I DID, PRIVATE! WHY DOES THAT SURPRISE YOU?!" the soldier stood over the scout and screamed in his face.

"WHAT THE HELL, MAN?! You said you were just gonna to kick my ass!" the scout shouted back.

"AND INDEED I DID, CUPCAKE! I KICKED YOUR ASS WITH A GUN BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO PLAY GRAB ASS WITH YOU ALL DAY! The PRICE of LIBERTY is ETERNAL VIGILENCE! Thomas Jefferson said that when he was storming the beaches at Normandy! But YOU were probably out SMOKING ROOFIES and PLAYING with your BALLS the day they were teaching THAT LESSON, WERENT YOU!? WAR IS NOT A GAME AND I AM NOT YOUR COACH! I am your COMMANDING OFFICER and I will tell YOU what I said and what YOU will say! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT OR DO I HAVE TO DRAW YOU A DIAGRAM?!"

"Alright! Alright! I get it, man! Jeez! Get off my dick!" the scout was more focused on the shot in his foot than the soldier looming over him.

"YOUR DICK IS MY PERSONAL PROPERTY, PRIVATE TWINKLETOES!" On the word 'dick', soldier punched the scout between the legs and the kid yelped even louder than when he had been shot.

"GAA! JEEZUS! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!" The scout was now crying and curled up in an even tighter little ball on the ground.

"STOP CRYING, MAGGOT! I ASK THE QUESTIONS AROUND HERE! JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! YOU ARE NOTHING! YOU MAKE ME SICK! FOR SIX MONTHS I HAVE TRIED TO TEACH YOU! I HAVE TRIED TO TURN YOU INTO SOMETHING USEFUL, BUT I HAVE FAILED! PERHAPS I WAS MISTAKEN IN THINKING THAT YOU HAD WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A MEMBER OF MY TEAM! MAYBE YOU REALLY ARE A WORTHLESS COCKSUCKING SACK OF SISSIFIED MAGGOT SCUM! MAYBE I SHOULD JUST GIVE UP ON YOU! MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST GO ON HOME TO MAMA AND GET A JOB BAGGING GROCERIES! YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO EVEN SET FOOT ON MY BATTLFEILD!"

The engineer almost felt like saying something at this point. Almost.

"GO FUCK YOURSELF, SERGEANT BOZO!" the scout kicked the soldier in the groin with his good foot, and the soldier obviously felt it, even though he tried really hard not to show it.

The engineer's laughter could be heard for almost a mile.

"In due time, private!" The soldier backed off with a cough, scooped up his helmet, dusted it off and put it back on his head. "Come back to me after you've hit the gym and maybe I'll think about letting you join me!"

"What?" The scout froze and gaped at the soldier while he stood at stiff attention for a long and very uncomfortable moment, all the while having to hear that engineer's uproarious laughter.

"GET UP OFF THAT GROUND, PRIVATE!" The soldier barked and the scout reflexively pulled himself up onto one foot. "Now hop your sorry ass over to those facilities and make use of 'em!" he pointed toward the engineer's truck.

"Yeah, whatever, pal." the scout started hopping away in that direction.

"Howdy." The engineer greeted him as he loaded a mangled machine onto the truck, trying to contain himself. "You look like you could use a hand – or should Ah say a foot?" he chuckled and jump-started the dispenser on the truck bed with a quick knock or two.

"Shut up, hard-hat." The scout snapped and hobbled up to the dispenser sitting in the back of the truck and leaned heavily on the bed. "Remember what I told you about keepin' yer boyfriend on a leash? What the hell have you been doin'!? I have yet to even see a collar on him! Un-fuckin-believable! I mean, do you have any idea who he's fuckin' with?! He'd betta learn to show some fuckin' gratitude for the guy that capped TWO FUCKIN POINTS FOR 'EM! YOU HEAR ME?! You'd be fuckin DEAD if I hadn't done that for ya!" He visibly puffed back up as the pink mist washed over him.

"Now, Ah understand where you're comin' from, but we all had a long day today, an' hell, let's face it – that fella's outta his goddamn mind - if anything you should be glad he only hurt you a little bit!" The engineer, still greatly amused by the scout's speech, paused in repairing that machine to point at him with his wrench.

"A LITTLE BIT?! Whaddaya mean a LITTLE BIT?! He just shot me in the foot and punched me in the balls, man! And for NO REASON to top it all off!"

"You took his helmet, son."

"YEAH?! So what? No big deal! I was just jokin' around!"

"Yeah? Now how would you like it if somebody came up to you and yanked that baseball cap offa your head, String Bean?" The engineer wasted no time in finding out.

"HEY Give that back!" The scout tried to just take it back, but with that bad foot, the engineer only had to hold it out of the kid's reach. "Okay man! I get it! Give it back!"

"S'matter, String Bean?" The engineer kept letting the scout strain to reach his cap with the one hand and then started gently but firmly smacking the scout in the face with the other. "Feelin' a lil' neked?"

"Stop it man! Come on!" The scout refused to give up; he hobbled around the engineer and started climbing on him to try and get his hat back. "My brudda gave me that hat!"

"Oh alright." The engineer finally relinquished the kid's dignity and slapped the cap back onto his head. "Don't start cryin' on me now."

"Shut up." the scout quickly readjusted his cap, taking a second or two to make sure that the engineer hadn't caused damage to it.

"Ah hope you learned yer lession, kid-o. Ya know Ah let that man fuck me last night and…"

"AW! AWW! DON'T TELL ME THAT!" the scout obviously wanted to run away, but his foot was still out of commission, so he just put his head down on the truck bed and pulled his cap down over his eyes and ears.

"…he bit me! He bit me hard! He took a fist-sized chunk outta mah shoulder, son!"

"I'm not hearin' this! I am not hearin' this! LA LA LA!" the scout squirmed.

"THEN he put a shotgun to mah face not even ten minutes later 'cuz he thought Ah was a spy! And you know what else? On the ride up here, he almost got us arrested because he thought there was some kinda communist rally goin' on at a Jolly Pirate Donuts! You ever seen somebody get face-planted into a deep-fryer? It ain't pretty." speaking of Jolly Pirate Donuts, the engineer remembered that he still had some, so he reached for that box and took one out.

The scout only looked back up at him, his eyes wide and his mouth pursed shut in his confusion.

"Anyway, mah point is, he might be a ball-bustin' attaboy, and he might also be mentally handicapped, but he's got feelin's his heart's in the right place." he took a bite. "You oughtta learn to watch your mouth, lest you get some kinda pleasure outta getting' your ass handed to ya all the time!"

"You know what, maybe I do! Maybe Captain America over there needs to be told what's up every once in a while! Maybe he needs to get it through his thick skull that he'd loose every single fight if it wasn't for me havin' his back all the time! But you know what else – fuck 'em! If he doesn't wanna show me any respect, I don't have to even waste my time with him!" He tried putting weight on his newly healed foot, then spun around to yell at the soldier, who had already started up his patrol again. "Yeah, did you hear that? FUCK YOU Major Moron! I normally don't let people disrespect me like that, but you got lucky this time 'cuz you're like a brudda to me! You're lucky that I'm such a nice guy and we're both on the same team! Otherwise I'd be OWNING you right now! Yeah, you'd BETTER keep walkin'!"

–

—

The medic came across the heavy artillery under the shadow of a shipping container and sitting on a steel ammo crate. He was dripping with sweat and blood, panting heavily, and propping himself upright with his hands on his knees. The medic had his hands full picking through cadavers for salvagable tissues, but he dropped everything when it became very obvious that he had neglected to treat his team since the win. The big man had run off immediately following the victory and had spent about an hour or so running down and subsequently manhandling BLU stragglers until he finally started to succumb to his injuries and the heat of that famous California sun. The body of his latest victim, the BLU heavy was lying belly up at his feet, bloody and twisted from what was quite factually the fight of his life. A noticeable amount of damage looked to have been added to the face post mortem.

Thinking that the battle was over, the medic had innocently left that unweildly medi-gun pack back inside the BLU medic's office, which was now being re-painted. His pockets were still lined with the 'manual' tools, however; he jogged up to his gravely injured teammate, readying scissors and iodine first thing, and hoped that he had enough packing materials to slow the bleeding. Heavy artillery's body could always stand such damage and function even wnen missing more than half of it's fluids, but for the huge man to run himself to such a level of exhaustion that he couldn't even hold his head up was becoming a common sight in this job.

"Dumkopf." The medic propped one knee on the ammo box, taking a position almost on top of the heavy and started working immediately. He first unstrapped the man's body armor to better access the bullet wounds in his torso. There looked to be at least two still oozing from bullets, and with each labored breath, more bloody fluids spurted from the holes.

"Vhy did you not call for me? You know zat I am never far…" The medic struggled to lift that weighty vest and bandolier off of him, and so the heavy artillery passively assisted him. Lifting his arms was obviously very painful, and his now weary hands could hardly grip, but he took them from the medic and dropped them down on the ground in an apparent huff of aggrivation.

"Дайте воды." Heavy artillery flopped his arms back down, his voice crackling from the fluids bubbling up from his lungs.

"Of course." the medic sighed wretchedly and handed over his canteen. "Danke, herr doctor…" he sarcastically reminded as Heavy artillery poured the entire contents over his head without a word or even the smallest indication of gratitude aside from that gutteral sigh of relief.

The medic proceeded to move behind him and cut off his shirt, peeling the sopping fabric away from his skin. He now could definitely feel all that excessive heat radiating out of the man's body as a billowing invisible steam cloud. He almost looked over the fact that the man's wide back was pale and waxy as a corpse's, since nearly all of his blood had been pouring out of the holes – one in the shoulder only an inch from his spine, another in the other arm, and a third merely a long gash from where a bullet had grazed through the fat on his side. Bruising was very extensive – purple and green patches larger than the medic's palms presumably from the other heavy's fists slamming into his ribs and kidneys. Any other man would be crying in agony or dead, but this big Russian just sat there like a sour, stone gargoyle while the medic stuck his fingers into those open wounds and pulled shrapnel from the flesh. It was almost unreal how big the man was, and how he could possibly be brought down to such a state. It was so easy to forget that he was made of the same stuff as every other human being on earth – he still had nerves and muscle fibers that tended to rupture while the medic extracted, or more dragged, half-inch shards of metal from them with his fingers, since he had unfortunately forgotten his tweezers - again.

"I see zat he gave you quite ze beating." The medic mused. "You vere ambushed?"

"Да." Heavy artillery's deep bass voice was almost too low to hear now. The medic leaned toward the man's head, hoping that the heavy would at least acknowledge his handy work in some way, as he often did.

"Clearly you came out of it ze better man…" being at this angle, the medic could now better appreciate the BLU heavy's face being no more than steak tar-tar on the pavement.

"This man – he choose not to run… so we fight.. I break his leg… his arms… then he beg for mercy…" The big Russian breathed out slowly and glowered at the man on the ground. Then he looked down upon his own shaking hands, still thickly coated in the other man's blood. "He deserved much worse than I could give to him… AAIECH!" He let out a pained shout when the medic started applying iodine to the wound on his side.

"Oh, don't be such a baby…" The medic always knew that any response to pain meant that the heavy was probably well enough to carry himself to the infirmary, but field surgery was always so much more entertaining. He pulled out a little billfold containing needle and thread. "Lift your arm up."

Heavy artillery did as he was told with a palpable grunt. He pulled his left arm up and over his head, allowing the medic to pinch the torn skin together, squeazing shut the gap in the muscle tissue under the inch or so of orangish fat. He must have finally hit a nerve when he inserted the needle, since he winced, but then he was back to a statue again as the medic threaded the wound. But after a few seconds the heavy's whole body started to shake. All those muscles in that arm only served as dead weight when they were torn and ruptured as they had been. Those few that still functioned were practically crying uncle under the demand.

"Idiot, you don't have to strain yourself! Just lean on me!" the medic hissed angrily and eased that heavy arm onto his shoulders. Heavy artillery relaxed with a painful sigh, letting the medic realize that he could not stand the weight for as long as he thought. "Ach! Vhat have I told you about cutting out ze sweets? Lean backward!" he pushed back with all his strength.

"You don't tell me what to do…" Shifting his weight even a little was excruciating for heavy artillery at this time. He leaned himself backward and the steel wall of that railroad car creaked behind him. As his skin made contact, he sucked air through his teeth from the pain of raw, torn flesh rubbing against itself, the hot metal, the medic's hands, everything. He sloppily propped his arm up behind his head and continued his skyward gazing while the medic worked.

—

The green zone was almost never secured to the soldier's specifications. In fact, it was never clear how the soldier determined where the green zone even was most of the time, or even what constituted everyone's safety. According to the soldier, everyone and everything was a potential enemy and therefore could not be trusted – even if it was innanimate. Needless to say the soldier was never idle and he was rarely, if ever, caught sleeping.

Every day at base started with a quick shave and a blaring bugle call. Then harsh drilling to anyone who was not up and dressed by the time he started making random rounds. No one was immune and the brunt of it was always reserved for anyone who gave it an opening – usually just by being present for it. If his troops were not fully awake and ready for battle by 0600, there was going to be hell to pay, as he often insisted.

He never finished morning chow any later than 0730, and everyone had better show up in the yard for the warm up or else. No one ever did, but the soldier oddly didn't seem to notice and would continue his drills and excersizes with an imaginary troop (sometimes at night he could be seen setting up these new recruits with severed enemy heads, cardboard decoys, whatever he had lying around). 100 each push ups, sit ups, then a jog around the base all the while keeping rhythm with a half-remembered marching tune that was always patriotic, always crude, and sometimes racially charged. Then, at the day's first re-spawn scan, a long and wandering motivational speech that was equally patriotic, but not always relavent, and usually innaccurate to current events.

After the day's mission, the soldier would then broadly congratulate, or berate and corporally punish his team depending on how things went. Then he would patrol the perimeter of the green zone for about an hour before he would hit the mess (a.k.a. The local diner) and demand that his meals consist of no less than 16oz of animal protein and be served with a side of potatoes or white bread and a vegetable of some kind. And god help you if any of the items on the plate were touching.

Then back to base for more patrolling and hygeine before he would institute lights out by 2200. The prestine and spotless condition of his bunk was a testament to the fact that he almost never slept. He would much rather keep up a patrol that would last until dawn – when the day started anew.

For the first few hours or so of knowing the soldier, the engineer half-way believed the things that came out of that man's mouth. After being on the run and out of work for so long, the engineer was more than ready and willing to put up with the business and do as he was told. The soldier's intenstity and fortitude could only belong to a man that had seen the battlefield and come out of it by the skin of his teeth. He had the scars and the reaction speed to prove it. Then, when that first mission ended, the soldier started telling stories about his exploits in 'The War'. Everyone else on the team immediately called bullshit of course, but the engineer started asking questions about the various inconsistencies in those stories.

At first it appeared that the soldier was presumably drafted at age 15, despite the fact that the soldier, being 45 years old, would have been 19 by the official 1942 draft. Then somehow was required to buy his own plane ticket when in fact commercial civilian transatlantic air travel was brought to a near hault by the time that the United States had entered the war. The engineer wondered how a young kid could get hold of that kind of money for the airfair anyway. Then he had to find his own way to Poland, where he single handedly killed 37,862 Nazis (6,578 in cold blood while looking them in the eye) jumped 1,336 grenades, stuffed fourteen feet of his own intestines back into his stomach, and rose to the supposed rank of Commander with minimal assistance from his unit by the time he returned to the states in 1949 – five years after the war had actually ended. His unit – if they were even around while he was fighting for his life against mathematically improbable and logically unlikely odds, comprised of nameless privates that died and were replaced quickly, and of course of three recurring men, all of whom were named 'Pete' with some discriptive prefix like 'salty' or 'pepperpot'. For all of this he was then awarded several medals, which the engineer now had to see.

The soldier kept his 'medals' in a wooden jewelry case that he kept in the bottom of his foot locker. They were neatly arraged bottlecaps that had been snipped, painted, and glued to colored felt. The engineer's blood ran cold upon realizing that the soldier had designed and made these himself. To top it all off – there in the far corner of the locker room were three wooden decoys set up around a doilied tea set on top of an ammo box. The soldier started laughing and slapping one of the decoys as though it had told him a joke at the engineer's expense. To tell the honest truth, the engineer would have been scared, or even felt seriously betrayed by the cherade if it wasn't to damned obvious that the soldier honestly and wholeheartedly believed in every bit of it. It brought the soldier down a few notches for damn sure, but it didn't make the engineer any less afraid of him. He still knew his guns inside and out, and he still led the charge in combat sitiuations. And those scars that he had seen were still very real. Whether they factually co-incided with the soldier's story mattered very little if they meant that he had the pain threashold of a mack truck and the get-up-and-go of a fuel-injected funny car. He was a loose cannon – or more like a completely ambulatory anti-tank cannon with rocket thrusters and a cougar's brain wired into it somehow. A very dangerous and blood-thirsty madman that could turn violently on anyone at any time, and for any reason.

The engineer was unsure if he should play along with the soldier; doing so or not doing so both had an equal chance of sending the man into a blind rage. And yet to the uprooted Texan, this made the soldier seem more approachable – even obtainable. This was just another problem that he needed so solve; Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that precise inequalities that constrain certain pairs of properties or outcomes cannot be simultaneously done to arbitrarily high precision. In other words, the more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be controlled, determined, or known. He did not know the soldier well enough to gaze how he would react, but he did know that he himself was a very bad liar.

As the engineer sat with the soldier and enjoyed some hot plate instant coffee, he just steered the conversation towards the next day's plans and his latest innovations in killing machines. The soldier, although he obviously was a little overwhelmed with all the technical intricacies, voiced his strong preference for his hands-on approach, and non-the-less carried on with the engineer for several hours. Thus the engineer avoided confronting the elephant in the room, and would continue to live with it peacefully from then on.


	7. Chapter 7

The meeting at 1700 went quickly. The plan of nuking the BLU's was always fairly self-explanitory; they had their nuclear payload ready to go and their only real debate was choosing which of the five or six railways to load it onto. Once the decision was made and the course was plotted, the meeting was adjurned after just ten minutes. There were some questions about the grossly disporportionate ratio of men between the teams and how manually pushing a nuclear payload right into the heart of that swarming enemy base was tantamount to suicide. The administration simply glowered at them and told them that she had 'already adressed that problem, and extra measures were underway.' Whatever that could have meant was anyone's guess.

With the fighting done for the day, the men parted ways; the demolition, heavy, and scout left together to hit the bars, while the spy went on his own and the sniper went back to his camper as he did every night. The medic retreated to the BLU medic's office and the pyro continued to shoot the breeze with his extended family before finally heading out with a handfull of them. The engineer returned to his salvage work – although he spent most of that time looking around for the soldier rather than scrap. The soldier had been conspiciously silent during the meeting – probably due to the scout's blow to his 'ego' earlier that afternoon. That was a cause for slight confusion, since usually when the soldier was injured, he'd be crying for medical attention; the man was tough, but he was hardly stoic. Usually right after being given such a straight forward plan of action, the soldier was on top of everyone else, ensuring that procedure was being followed to his specifications, but this time he just marched off and disappeared. Perhaps he was out on patrol again.

He covered most of the complex in his final rounds; the intel room was vast and sparcely populated by Ms. Pauling and another much taller and redder female staff member going over some files in the low light of the big board showing the world map. They gave him a smile as he waved and kept walking down the hall. The tall girl must have been new. No sign of the soldier.

The BLU engineer's workshop had been blown inside out not too long ago; it would take a few more hours of work before RED engineer could make adequate use of the space. There was a selection of larger power tools including a laser-cutter taking up a whole corner that seemed to still be in working order, but they were still covered in plastic sheeting from the construction which was still in an unfinished state. There were still several dozen contractors running around and putting walls together; failing miserably to keep out of each others' way, let alone his. Still no sign of the soldier.

BLU more often seemed to have sleeker, more modern facilities, which may have accounted for their unique brand of carelessness – it looked as though that spot welder hadn't even been used. The engineer looked around for a trash can for his now empty donut box, until he eventually just threw that box onto a pile of crumbled drywall debris that had been swept into a corner and headed back to the truck, figuring that he might as well take a break after some sixteen straight hours of working. Maybe he would finally run into the soldier outside. The engineer was really looking forward to relieving some tension right about now.

The engineer's walk back to the truck was uncomfortably peacefull compared to the impersonal hustle and bustle going on inside the complex. Then he saw the soldier at his truck – sitting slumped on the edge of the bed, taking a long swig from a cigarrette. Odd that he'd be so still.

"Somethin' on yer mind, there, sold-…" The engineer finally saw that his sentry was down. He stopped dead in his tracks, went for his pistol and yelled "SPY!" in the hopes that somebody would hear.

"Bon wi, Laborer!" the figure of the RED soldier sprang off from the truck bed and melted into the air.

"Dammit!" the RED engineer fired once, hoping to hit the spy before he got any closer. He couldn't tell, so he went for his wrench and ran for the truck.

"Yippy-kay-yay, my illiterate friend!" The BLU spy momentarily revealed himself, but the engineer caught the shine of that blade just in time to duck. The BLU spy's knife plunged into the steel shell of the truckbed and stuck; the RED engineer took full advantage of that momentary struggle and swung his wrench as hard as he could – rendering the BLU spy visible once again when he hit him in the back.

BLU spy coughed loudly and realed from the blow, but wasn't finished. He pulled a gleeming revolver from under his jacket and fired a shot. The bullet hit RED engineer in the forearm, tearing tendons he needed to weild that wrench.

"GAA!" The RED engineer dropped his wrench and fought the urge to gawk at his now useless right hand.

"Au revoir!" With that usual raspy cackle, the BLU spy started shooting again, but the RED engineer didn't waste any time trying to dodge them as he raised his pistol again and started shooting from the hip.

"You low down dirty -!" RED engineer's next string of explitives was drowned out by his pistol fire. He kept unloading and drowing out everything but the cracks of gunfire and the trajectory of bullets tearing into that BLU suit, issuing small geysers of crimson and forcing the man down. He ended up pumping lead into the BLU spy until the slide stuck open and the trigger stopped pulling.

The engineer did not entirely register that his gun was empty until he had been standing over the BLU corpse for several seconds. He had counted more than fifteen shots fired, but he himself only had six bullets and there was no way that the spy had more than six in that antique revolver. The man's head now no longer even had a recognizable face, but the RED engineer would not let himself out of that stance until he saw the pearl handle slip limply from his enemy's dead fingers.

It was then that he finally heard a quick double-beep behind him, then another loud pop as a much higher caliber bullet screamed past his head and thouroughly exploded the BLU spy's hand. The RED engineer almost had a heart attack; he wanted to turn and run before whoever was behind him could get a second shot at him, but he was unable to move. He had been under sniper fire before; he refused to believe that he was paralized with fright in the face of it. But thanks to the delays between scans and respawn he never would have remembered his moments just before death come to think of it.

Then he heard the beep again.

He turned his head and saw his sentry perched on the roof of his truck's cab – right were he left it.

"Why you - !" That sentry was down a few seconds ago. But he didn't exactly recall if there was a sapper on it or not. There certainly wasn't one on it now, so that narrowed down the possibilites substantially.

"Were you playin' opossom?!" He shouted furiously at the little contraption.

The sentry actually dropped it's turrett down two inches – as though it were flinching at the volume of the engineer's voice.

"WELL?!" the engineer demanded, livid and getting dizzier from blood loss by the second.

The sentry pointed it's barrel downward and beeped once.

"DAGNABBIT! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SHOOT SPIES, NOT HIDE FROM 'EM, YOU YELLA-BELLIED HUNK-A-JUNK!" The engineer furiously threw his empty pistol at the sentry, which ducked, avoiding the impact and watched it fly several feet farther before it landed in the dirt. It then spun back around and faced the engineer, who just got even more angry.

"WHAT IN THE HELL HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU?! Ah almost got KILLED juss now…" the engineer's head started spinning and he had to lean on the open bay of the truckbed. "Dammit, you're lucky Ah've gotta fix this dispenser before Ah bleed to death…" he pawed that sapper off the dispenser and began the job as best he could with his good arm. He gave the machine a few knocks with his fist until it kicked back on for a few seconds. The pink mist started flowing just long enough to stop the bleeding and return feeling in his other hand before the power source burned out.

The sentry beeped at him and followed his every movement as he leaned on the truck, breathing in and out in painful and feverish exchanges. It was typical of the sentries to observe him, but this kind of response was new. If the engineer didn't know any better, he would have thought the damn thing was trying to engage him in a non-lethal (possibly a sympathetic?) manner.

"Just do your damn job and keep an eye out for me before I come up there and turn you into a damn toaster!" The engineer yelled.

The sentry beeped at him again, but responded appropriately this time and did what it was told, returning to it's duty of scanning the immediate area for enemies.

"Damn right…" The pain was almost too much to deal with now that the nerves had been shocked back into functionality before those wounds could close. The engineer now found that he had been hit in the gut as well as his arm. At least he had the use of both hands again. He reached out and disconnected the dispenser's power supply, then began the work of trying to open it up and fix it. It didn't take long to pull the burnt capaciters and hook the good ones back up to the machine. It was technically an easy job, but he suffered throughout from the wounds, the exhertion, and the confusion. Even as his body was finally being healed, the engineer worried about what could have happened to the real soldier; he might have been taken out by that spy, but if that was the case, he would have popped out of respawn some time ago. He wracked his brain, trying to think of what action needed to be taken next, and looked back up at that sentry with concern. There must have been a short or something that caused it to prioritize self-preservation before it's primary function. Whatever the problem was – he couldn't allow it to happen again – especially now that things were getting intense again.

"Now let's see what's gotten into you…" Once he was able, the engineer climbed up into the truck and approached the sentry with a screw driver in his hand. The sentry beeped frantically and retracted it's tripod into it's turret housing in avoidance of the engineer's hands. "Hold still, dammit!" the engineer simply picked it up and turned it on it's side, all the while the sentry beeped and flailed – indicating an error. He unscrewed it's casing and found that all the circuitry inside was functioning normally – if not at a much higher rate of speed than usual. Nothing looked to be damaged.

"Well don't that juss beat all…" the engineer muttered to himself. "There must be some kinda data corruption…" he got out his PDA and hooked it up to the sentry's port. Green letters started crawling across the little screen immediately;

/error/ operator /error/ danger /error/ non combatant threat /error/ /neutralize target/ /error/ operator is not target /error/ unit under threat /error/ toaster is non-lethal unit/execute priority 674895 self defense protocol beta/ /error/ operator indicating threatno threat /error/ / directory diagnosis initiating/ stand by….

"Aw hell…" the engineer looked on in shock as the sentry's CPU self-diagnosed without his incentive. He watched in utter amazement as those lines ran across the screen, but was barely able to keep up with them. He caught a few key words that he had never entered, 'fright response' and 'ouch' that were some serious causes for concern, but he found himself just as helpless to stop this as he did a few moments ago when he thought he was under sniper fire. Then the scripts finally bottomed out.

…./primary directive override conducted at 47:62:93:1724 / in response terminal error/ target detected /insufficient target data/ insufficient behavior protocol/

"…" the engineer stood staring at this for a very long moment. He programed the thing to make a randomized choice in the case of logical conundrum, but he somehow never supposed what that kind of independence could lead to. Again, leaving that variable to chance was a matter of convenience. He had meant for his sentries to learn from experience and make adjustments to their behavior on their own, increasing efficiency. But now it was past learning and making adjustments for the purposes of tactical warfare. It had to compensate for a major gap in it's own protocols and make a randomized action from which it learned that it had flaws. It made a very understandable mistake and now it was frantically making attempts to learn from it. This was what it was programmed to do, but it's behavior was now very different from before – as though those pantomime behaviors were no longer just a mirrored communication tool. The whole point of building sentries was to keep the amount of confusion on the battlefield to a minimum. Now he might as well have had another set of fallible human beings wielding these lazer-sighted .50 caliber machine guns. In the old days he would have been fascinated – even excited by this development, but right now he was feeling a cold sweat coming on.

"Dagnabbit… I shoulda seen this comin'." he pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. The sentry abruptly turned it's frontal sensors on him and gave him another double-beep.

/initiating human interface protocol 90981insufficient data/terminal protocol error/operator input needed/terminate unit?/operator input n/y?/…

The engineer for once in his life didn't know how to answer – he had been thinking about hitting the kill switch and wiping the hard drive anyway. But he hesitated now.

/terminal protocol error/operator input needed/terminate unit?n/y?/… The sentry repeated with another double beep.

The sentry's AI was convinced that it was logically aware of some kind of corruption. It was proposing that continued operation under this condition had a mathematically significant chance for further error and endangerment, and yet it was still asking for operator permission to end it's own existence. The engineer puzzled over why he was starting to tear up.

/operator unresponsive/terminal protocol error/unit will initiate self destruct sequence 67854 in 10 seconds/countdown initiated 10…9…

"NO dammit!" the engineer hit the N on the keypad and set the sentry back upright. He disconnected the PDA and looked the thing straight on through it's visual sensors. "You know what your job is, so do it!"

The sentry beeped twice and bobbed it's turret up and down in affirmation. Then the engineer watched it spin back around and snap back into it's duty before he finally let himself climb back down and retrace his steps in search of the soldier. Once on the ground he first gingerly examined the BLU spy's corpse and found that he had been wearing a wire – meaning that he had been to the 1700 meeting and recorded everything. He pulled the microfilm cassette and gave his sentry a whistle just before tossing it into the air like a clay pigeon. A single bullet fired from that sentry at pinpoint precision destroyed the tape in mid-air. Then the machine returned to scanning the area. Beautiful.

The engineer then looked around, trying to remember where he last saw the soldier before he checked in. Since he hadn't popped out of respawn, he was probably in a really bad spot. If the soldier was in a bad spot, this good ol' boy didn't have much in the way of back up with everyone else off the clock for the day. Without a second thought, the engineer grabbed his tools and climbed back up onto the truck, figuring that he should pump up that sentry for the long haul. If there were still BLUs sneaking around, the soldier wouldn't be the only one in a bad spot.

After some clumsy strapping in and searching for his keys, the engineer fired up the truck and peeled out for the open railway junction. He spent almost twenty minutes driving around looking between train cars and behind crates and around corners in the purple twilight. The place was very quiet, but the cricket sounds gave him some reassurance that there hadn't been much movement for some time. He finally came upon the soldier lying face down out in the open between the high fence and the shipping/receiving building. Blood was in a wide steak on the ground behind him and he still had his rocket launcher out like he had been trying to drag himself after the spy's bloody footprints before he finally succumbed. The engineer threw the truck into park and rushed out to him. He had been stabbed twice in the back; two deep holes that almost certainly punctured his lungs.

"Hey! You still with me, soldier?" the engineer dropped down and flipped the soldier onto his side. The soldier woke up with a start, but only had the strength to loudly gasp for air and involuntarily convulse like a fish out of water. His face was already bright red with his own blood, and still more spattered from his mouth as he forced it up and out of his chest.

"Spy!" He flailed for a second, supposedly trying to stand up. The engineer caught a glimpse of the soldier's eyes under the lip of his helmet – wide, distant, and unfocused.

"Easy there, partner! Ah got him for ya! Don't you worry!" the engineer tried to keep himself calm while he took a firmer grip on the soldier's wrist and draped the length of his arm over his shoulders. The soldier cried out in pain at the resistance, but eventually clasped his hands on the engineer's clothes for support. The man was now almost ice cold to the touch and he was shaking violently. He should have died with that much blood missing, but he had been stubbornly holding on this whole time.

"Quit hovering… m'FINE…" the soldier's voice gurgled.

"Don't waste yer energy tryin' ta act tough, mister! Stay with me now…" the engineer started to shift the soldier's body onto his back. The soldier grimaced and growled at every movement as the engineer stood up with a grunt, lifting that extra weight with his knees and rising to a wobbly stance. "Ah'll get you fixed up in a jiffy!" The engineer huffed and brought his load around to the dispenser and waited; in just a few that damn soldier would be yelling and giving him a hard time like he was supposed to.

As he healed, the soldier's chest cleared and each breath seemed to stretch out for more than a minute. The engineer's shirt was still soaked with his blood, but the clamminess faded as the holes closed and his fluids replenished. The engineer wanted to just stand there and keep feeling him recover, hoping that the soldier would tighten his grip, reassuring him of his strength returning. But the man just kept shaking. As soon as he was able to move his limbs and he took a grip on the engineer's shoulders, but just to push himself off.

"Hey now!" the engineer couldn't help but feel a little hurt as the soldier touched down, shoved off him and started to walk away. "What's eatin' you?"

"Don't concern yourself, civilian!" The soldier only picked his rocket launcher up off the ground and started running off in the direction of those bloody footprints. "There's a spy in our midst!"

"Dammit! Ah just told you Ah already got 'im!" The engineer started jogging after him. He caught up with him closer to the compound where the body of the BLU spy still lay in a pool of blood. "See?" the engineer huffed, silently resolving that he needed to quit smoking.

The soldier just stood over the spy's body for a long moment.

"I'd be lyin' if Ah said it was easy, but there you have it." The engineer straightened and patted the soldier on the back. "I'm juss glad Ah got back to you in time! What's say we go fer chow, huh?" he gave the soldier's arm a light tug as he turned to leave, but the soldier didn't budge.

"Whats the matter? Did Ah miss somethin'?" the engineer paused and tried to gauge the soldier's expression under that helmet. His jaw looked to have the usual stern scowl, and he was still staring a hole into that dead spy. He eventually broke from it to look around in all directions.

"There could be more of those scum-sucking french ticklers sneaking around." the soldier said finally and shouldered his rocket launcher and started marching back towards the outer fence. "I will not rest until each and every one of them is DEAD!"

The engineer wanted to stop him, but even with a complete report on the most miniscule mathematical improbability of a second spy sneaking past the alarm system, he had no argument against the justification of the soldier's paranoia. To the soldier, any chance of a threat – even if it was one in a billion - it was still a threat.

"Alrighty then." the engineer let out a sigh of bitter longing as he watched the soldier patrol the length of that fence. He was still exhausted, he just didn't feel right just leaving him, and at the same time, he couldn't just stand there or follow the man either. "Ah'll just uh… secure the other end Ah guess…" he started walking back to his truck.

–

It was a nice sunset despite the engineer's soreness. He settled into the cab of his truck to the sound of the sentry's gears turning on the roof above him, and the dull noises of the coming night. But he could not sleep or even relax for that matter. He knew for a flat fact that the place was as secure as it was going to get until the next morning, and it was getting boring and lonely out here keeping watch for phantoms. So he had himself a beer. Then another.

After an hour or two and the fourth or fifth beer on an empty stomach, the engineer gave into his boredom and general frustration. He exited his truck/fort and went after the soldier, who was still marching along the perimeter fence.

"Mind if Ah have a word with ya, soldier?" He asked and started keeping pace with him at his side.

"Keep your voice down! We are in FULL LOCKDOWN and we have to be on our toes!" The soldier snapped at him, but kept walking and scanning the darkness.

"Now ya see, that's what Ah've been meanin' to talk to you about…" the engineer ignored the order.

"Dammit man! What part of FULL LOCKDOWN do you not understand?! Any minute now, another one of those BLU scum piles could be right on top of us again! They could be anywhere! Get it together!" The soldier wasn't shaky anymore, and he was consciously steadying his breathing, but his face was ruddy and glistening with sweat like he had just finished a marathon.

"Ah did get it together soldier – there was just one spy hangin' around 'cuz he didn't run off with the others after we got done chasin' em out! But he's dead now and we're about as safe as a Swiss bank now that our alarm system is up and runnin'." he latched one hand onto the soldier's arm, stopping him momentarily. "Ah don't know if you noticed or not, but it's gettin' late and Ah juss can't stand idly by while you run yourself ragged for no good reason, mister!"

"What do you mean for no good reason?! Of course there's a good reason! War never takes a break, you cowarding Canadian!" the soldier tore free from him and shouted into his face.

The engineer punched the soldier square in the jaw and sent him reeling backwards into the fence.

"Don't you EVER call me that again, soldier!" the engineer barked and pointed at the soldier as he still leaned on the fence, pawing at his face and gawking at his assailant in disbelief. The engineer didn't expect that kind of surpised reaction from the soldier, but he had already hit him and now he had to carry through without apology if he wanted to keep his respect. "Ah'm as American as you are, you damn Yankee son of a bitch! And Ah sure as hell AIN'T no coward! Ah don't know if you could tell by that dead spy, or by the fact that Ah saved your sorry ass from bleedin' ta death back there, but Ah kin hold my own any day of the week with or without you marchin' around chasin' yer shadow all goddamn night!"

"So you got lucky once and now you think you can take on the chain of command?! You've got some balls! BRASS BALLS! Gimme your best shot, grease-monkey!" The soldier sprang off the fence and readied his fists.

"Well, if you insist…" The engineer again, really didn't want to keep going down this road, but he might as well; that damn soldier was never one to respond to sympathy or compassion anyway. "Lift yer lid and you just might see it comin', Rocket boy!" The engineer went for his extension cord first thing this time around.

"DEFEND YOURSELF!" The soldier swung first and the engineer leaned his upper half backward to avoid it. "Come here and take your lumps like a MAN, cupcake!" on his second swing, the soldier grabbed the engineer by the collar. The engineer instinctively threw his head forward and smashed his hard hat into the soldier – who had taken the same action; there was a loud crack and the engineer found himself dazed. The soldier kept that tight grip on his collar and punched him in the nose hard enough to knock him out of his own grip.

Engineer stumbled backwards, trying to stay up on his feet. For that moment, he noticed that his hard hat was now cracked down the middle and laying on the ground a few feet away. He tasted blood in his mouth and wiped his face on his forearm painfully. His nose was broken and bleeding. He looked back up at the soldier, who was more visibly winded, but still poised and ready for more with the lip of his helmet cocked slightly sideways – showing one angry blue eye burning into him.

"Had enough, sweetheart?" The soldier grinned.

"You really are stupid, ain't ya? Ah'm still standin' ain't Ah?" The engineer was now feeling a little woozy, but he stretched out a length of that yellow cord in both hands, calculating his next action. He noticed the soldier still standing there in front of him, catching his breath. "Say, ain't you hot in that coat?" he asked.

"Wut?" the soldier again was caught off guard.

"Yer lookin' mighty sweaty there, partner. You shoulda oughta take that coat off before you give yourself a stroke – don't worry, Ah'll wait a second for ya." the engineer smiled and started tying a lasso.

"Roger that." The soldier started unstrapping his belt without any indication of a second thought. "Thanks for the thought, Engie! But don't think even for a second that I'm going to go easy on you!" He was stuff huffing as he spoke, but sounded to be in better spirits.

"Ah'll keep that in mind…" The engineer tried not to laugh at how easy that was and watched the soldier unsheathe himself intently. He mused over how someone so fierce and so paranoid, could be so vulnerable to suggestion. This was a serious problem, but to the engineer, the consequences of taking advantage of the soldier's mental shortcomings were minimal in comparison to the consequences of leaving him to his own devices tonight – especially if he really was as exhausted as he was estimating.

As soon as that red overcoat hit the ground, the soldier shot forward again and tried to grab the engineer with both hands. The engineer skillfully ducked and socked him in the gut as hard as he could. The blow knocked the wind right out of the taller man and he doubled over in pain, giving the engineer just the chance he needed to toss a loop of that cord around him and pull it tight.

"GAA! Dammit! What's the big idea?!" The soldier struggled against him, but his arms were now pinned to his sides. So he started pulling away, but he couldn't get much farther than a few inches.

"Ah TOLD you Ah couldn't stand idly by and let you run yourself ragged, mister!" The engineer dug his heels in and let himself chuckle at his accomplishment. He reeled in the cord, pulling his captive back towards him. "If anybody's gonna be runnin' you ragged, it's gonna be me!" he wasted no time tying a knot and going for one of the soldier's wrists.

"You're going to have to do better than this, private cowboy!" The soldier spun around, yanking the engineer along with him, but his attempt to throw him was unsuccessful. "If you think you can get between me and my duty, you are very wrong!"

"Ah ain't tryin' ta come between nothin', soldier boy! Ah'm just wranglin' one a' the steers that got loose…" By now the engineer was tugging on that wrist, trying to bend it behind the soldier's back and lash it into that knot around his arms. In the process he pulled the soldier off balance and finally brought him down to the ground. But the soldier continued to twist and turn until the engineer climbed onto his back, forcing his body to flatten face down. "Hold still dammit!" he finally got hold of the soldier's other arm and looped that cable around it as well.

"YOU ARE OUT OF LINE, PRIVATE!" The soldier shouted and thrashed, but ran out of steam after just a few seconds and lay there panting under the weight of the engineer. "I AM YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER AND YOU WILL UNTIE ME RIGHT THIS INSTANT! DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

"We'll see…" The engineer decided that he ought to check the integrity of those knots before he got too absorbed in straddling the soldier's back. He felt like he was worn down enough, but past experience dictated that the engineer could never be too careful. He ran his hands along the soldier's sides, causing him to shudder and writhe underneath him. Still as ticklish as ever.

"WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, PRIVATE COWBOY?! I DID NOT GIVE YOU CLEARANCE FOR THAT!" The soldier squirmed and gnashed his teeth, twisting his head around to keep his very red and sweaty face out of the dirt and spit his angry retort at the man on his back. His voice lowered noticably as he visibly tried to keep himself from crying. "THIS IN AN ACT OF INSURRECTION AND IS HIGHLY UNACCEPTABLE CONDUCT IN MY UNIT! YOU ARE NOW IN A WORLD OF SHIT! AS SOON AS YOU UNTIE ME, I WILL SHOW YOU THE MEANING OF PAIN, PRIVATE COWBOY!"

"Oh my! Ah better watch it! Ah tell you what - you've got me sweatin' like a whore in church!" The engineer chuckled and kept feeling along the taught length of the soldier's shaking torso, then back down towards his waist, his hands just below the reach of the soldier's desperately grasping and clawing fingers. He had such a distinct triangular shape to him in the way he tapered from an almost three foot shoulder span to that 28in waist (according to the tag sticking up in the back of his pants). His skin was very wet with sweat and there was so much heat radiating off of him, it were as though he had literally run his body into a burn out. But the spirit was clearly still willing.

"Then I will untie myself! THEN you'll be sorry! Just you wait!" the soldier growled and tried to pull his legs under his body, but by now he was too weak to do much more than grunt and kick around in the dirt until the engineer finally gave in and casually dismounted him.

"Take all the time you need, partner." The engineer just stood over him and tried to stop laughing.

Even as the soldier was able to get his knees under, he couldn't quite find the strength to teeter himself upright without the use of his arms, which actually seemed to be just the right weight to keep him down. He took a moment to rest on his knees, his chest and chin still anchored to the ground, and catch his breath after only a few seconds of struggle.

"You are juss too ornery for your own good, boy!" The engineer finally took pity on the soldier and bent down to help him up.

"Whadda YOU know?!" the soldier snarled as the engineer took him by the elbow and hoisted him up to his feet. He was heavier than the engineer expected, but the soldier wobbled upright and clumsily planted himself with his assistance.

"Ah know Ah worry 'bout you sometimes." The engineer patted the soldier on the shoulder as soon as he was up on his own. The soldier looked back at him at that last statement.

"What?!" The soldier demanded.

"Ah said Ah worry 'bout you sometimes!" the engineer repeated himself, but with a much sterner tone. "Ah mean -"

"Are you my WIFE, private cowboy?!"

"Now what in tar-nation is THAT supposed to -?"

"BECAUSE I SURE AS HELL DON'T REMEMBER MARRYING YOU! It is every soldier's duty to throw down his life for the sake of his mission - !"

"Our mission is OVER for the day, ya dumb DICK!" The engineer matched the soldier's volume and slapped the helmet right off his head. The soldier was obviously shocked and stood there frozen, gawking dumbly at the engineer. "Dagnabbit, Ah just wanted you to stop marchin' up and down that goddamn fence fer FIVE cotton-pickin' minutes so … we could… ya know…" he trailed off and took a quick look around t o make sure that there weren't any open windows or cameras pointing their way.

"Know what?" the soldier hardly moved, but his brow furrowed and his eyes raced back and forth from the engineer, then where the engineer was looking, then back to the engineer.

"You know… uh… relieve some tension?" The engineer pulled off his goggles, wanting to be absolutely sure that no one was watching – especially that highly impressionable sentry over there.

"I still don't get …" the soldier puzzled until the engineer finally yanked his head down and planted a hungry kiss on his lips. After a second or two of shock, the soldier started leaning into it. He even pushed a soft groan of enjoyment through his nose. The heat of his skin and his breath, the gruff sound in his throat, and the tickling brush of his stubble instantly burned away any thought or hesitation that remained in the engineer, who took a good hold of that extension cord and started pulling the soldier toward the nearest building.

–

The engineer wrangled the soldier through an unlocked maintenance door and into a boiler room, which was dimly lit with a few humming yellow bulbs in key corners of the room.

"Five minutes, huh?" The soldier huffed, grinning ferally at him. "Last night I had you crying for your mama in less than two!"

"Yep." The engineer couldn't deny that. "Ah reckon you know your way around a regulation fuck, don't ya." He gave the soldier a stern push inside, then turned briefly to lock the door behind them.

"Of course I do! If you didn't SKIP THE DRAFT you would also understand how to execute the standard regulation fuck!" the soldier spun around and raised his voice only to be shoved back against a wall.

"Dumber than dog shit, ain't ya?" The engineer chuckled as he pressed his weight on the other man's shoulders with both hands.

"YOU ARE WAY OUT OF LINE, PRIVATE COWBOY!" The soldier glowered back at him, his face now glowing red. "Back when I was in the s… service… we…" the soldier's voice trailed off as the engineer moved in and gave him a peck on the cheek, then another on the neck while his hands started sneaking down the front of his body. His shirt was sopping wet from his sweating, but the engineer didn't care – he had worked himself into a stupor and fought this man down for what felt like hours for this. He rested his head on one of those wide shoulders for a moment, watching the soldier watch him – his eyes followed the engineer's hand down, then he leaned his head back against the wall and fixed his gaze at the ceiling as soon as he noticed that he was being watched.

"We knew where the line was … and…" The soldier seemed to be more confused than anything else. But the engineer was certain that if the soldier didn't want this to happen, there was no doubt in his mind that he would have torn free and beaten him to within an inch of his life by now. He had faith in his own knots, but he didn't exactly see the soldier struggling any more either. He kept moving his hands down the soldier's front, groping that thick leathery musculature the whole way. The soldier's lecture had fallen silent, but the sound of his breathing was still heavy in the engineer's ears. He was just on the cusp of letting out more, but the engineer wanted it now. He yanked that wet t-shirt out from being tucked under the soldier's belt and pulled it up past his ribs and was forced to leave it bunched just under the soldier's bound arms. Once exposed, the soldier sucked in a lungfull of air for the sudden contact with the cool air.

The soldier's bare chest and stomach had a deceptively soft look to them in this flat yellow lighting; his collar bones and his sternum were like concrete just below the surface of his damp skin, which was now contracting in reaction to this exposure. The engineer instinctively hugged the soldier snugly, wrapping one arm around his taught middle and pressing the better half of his upper body into his chest, which by now was heaving from his nervous breathing. The soldier's fiberous pecs felt like a fine leather couch to the engineer, and so he nestled into it, loosing himself in the feel of it.

He started his free hand down that path of soft dark hairs along the expanse of the soldier's belly again; he couldn't see that nervously twitching six pack for that layer of insulating fat, but he could certainly feel it just under the surface. The engineer wanted to just dive right down into the soldier's pants, but that belt needed to be loosened first, and jamming his relatively cold hands down upon the man's delicates would be too much of a shock besides. The answer – build up some friction first thing; the engineer's hand skipped down a bit and started working its way back up along the soldier's inside leg.

The hard outline of the soldier's legs trembled under the rough fabric of his slacks. His body was hard all over thanks to his constant activity and compulsive workout routine, but he was still vulnerable to this kind of gentle teasing. Especially around that soft region between his legs; the soldier's package seemed to fit right in the palm of the engineer's wandering hand and started pulsing under the pressure.

"Gahh..!" The soldier grimaced, but practically melted into the engineer's hands. His torso arched outward and he became weak in the knees as the shorter man steadily kneaded his crotch through his pants. The engineer reached his other arm further around the soldier's waist and, just for good measure, he took a firm grip on his buttocks. That was almost enough by itself; the engineer knew how tight the soldier was and feeling the man's muscles tense in surprise under the grip of his hand made him think even harder about how it would feel if he let him have more.

"You like that, huh?" He mused and continued to stroke the soldier's steadily rising arousal, all the while listening to his pounding heart and that pitiful groan that was finally leaking out of his chest. The resonance could be felt throughout his body.

"I don't know what you're talking about…" The soldier huffed, his shoulders and head still leaning flat against the wall and his eyes fixed angrily up at the ceiling.

"How 'bout this?." The engineer, glancing upward, knew that the soldier was lying through his teeth, and took it as a challenge. He took a moment to unzip the soldier's fly, and then shoved his hand right in.

"DAA!" The soldier yelped and bucked involuntarily at the skin contact. His whole body stiffened in surprise, but relaxed as the engineer started up again. "DAMMIT…Christ almighty… as soon as I can get out of this…"

"You ain't getting' outta this one." The engineer grinned. "Not till Ah'm done with ya." He gave the soldier's erection a good squeeze, causing it to pulse back even harder and start issuing some pre-cum. "An' by then you won't be in any shape to do much about it, soldier boy. That is – if you can even last that long…"

The soldier winced and almost collapsed as blood rushed out of his head. "Give me your best shot, MAGGOT!" He growled and tried to shake it off. "You'll never outlast me! Not in a million ye—ahhh… hahhh! What are you doing back there?!"

"Easy now. If you keep squirmin, Ah might have to bend you over!" The engineer had moved his other hand down between the soldier's glutes and was now messaging him through the seat of his pants. It was such a warm, snug spot back there. "Hell, since Ah got you all tied up, Ah might just do that anyway…" He paused to start unbuckling the soldier's belt.

"Oh you're really in for it now! I will come down on you with the force of a -"

"Shut up." the engineer pulled the soldier's pants down to his knees, then popped off the straps of his coveralls. "You don't want me to have to stick my cock in your mouth now, do ya?"

"Go ahead and try it!" the soldier gnashed his teeth. The engineer paused, now having seconds thoughts at the sight of them.

"Ah don't care too much for your tone, mister." the engineer saved his position and grabbed the soldier's upper arms and spun him around. "Ah was gonna go easy on you, but you ain't givin' me much option." he pushed him flat against the wall.

"Don't even TRY to get my hopes up, you sniveling fruit basket!" The soldier spat back at him. "Your ass will have to be escorted from the bank for writing THAT check! You are pathetic!" He was still showing his war face. It didn't matter if he actually was tired, or angry, or scared. He would keep this up until he literally had nothing left. That was his way; give in and you die, hesitate and you die, show any shred of emotion outside of hatred and you die. His body was rock hard and his mind was even harder. It was probably for the best that they hadn't learned one another's names, and yet the engineer wanted every part of this man. Here he was, pressed against the wall and presenting himself – his hands tied behind his back, clenched in a pair of white-knuckled fists and the bare skin on his perfectly toned back, buttocks and legs beckoning him. But he was still fighting him and demanding nothing less than the most severe punishment for his unbecoming position of surrender. It dawned on the engineer that he really had his work cut out for him; he now had to give this man the hardest pounding he could give, just to ensure his fevered ego the satisfaction of having fought his hardest to prevent it.

The engineer spread both hands around either side of the soldier's hips and suddenly found himself gawking at his scarred back again. His body was so solid and durable only because of how much hurt had been hammered into it. The weight of the engineer's tool belt pulled this pants down quickly, slamming into the concrete with a thud and a clank, but he hesitated. That nagging guilt tugged at him, and he began to hate himself again for pulling the soldier down like this – what he thought was a genuine concern for the man's well-being seemed like just another flimsy justification to what most outside observers would amount to rape. The rape of an exhausted and incapacitated veteran to top it all off.

"TODAY MAGGOT! DO I HAVE TO COME BACK THERE AND SHOW YOU HOW IT'S DONE?!" The soldier demanded.

"HELL NO!" the engineer matched the soldier's volume, slipped off his insulated glove and whipped the soldier hard across the back with it.

The soldier cried out in pain and nearly folded. The engineer's heart skipped a beat, but he couldn't back down now.

"Ah know exactly what the hell Ah'm doin', ya dumb jarhead son of a bitch!" he hit him again, this time across the buttocks. "You got that?!"

The soldier jerked himself away at the stinging impact, but put himself back and readied for another like a good soldier would.

"Y-Yes SIR!" The soldier shouted back, possibly to have that pained scream come out as forceful and manly words intstead.

"Now, do you wanna get fucked fast, or do ya wanna get fucked right?!" the engineer kept his volume up, trying his damnedest to keep his voice steady. Then he waited for the soldier to reply. The soldier only struggled to catch his breath and stay on his feet; leaning heavily on the wall by his chest and the side of his head, and his whole face still red and clenched in pain. Then finally, he cleared his throat, swallowed, and opened his eyes, although he didn't look at the engineer's face, so much as downward in his general direction.

"I want to get fucked right, sir." his voice came out quiet and halting slightly from his exhaustion.

"What was that?" the engineer didn't believe his ears.

"SIR." The soldier said louder and much steadier than before. He lifted his head up and took in another breath. "I said I would like to get fucked right, sir." that sentence followed by a relenting snort.

"That's what the hell Ah thought!" The engineer gave the soldier another satisfactory slap across the ass, mainly to cover the choking in his throat. The soldier only grunted from the sting this time, having been expecting it.

"Now juss relax an' let me do that for ya, ya hear?" It took a lot for the engineer to keep himself from crying and he couldn't quite place the reason why. He threw down his glove and regained his firm two-handed grip on the soldier's hips and positioned him manually without giving himself the chance to clear his head.

"Yes, sir." The soldier looked away, all expression fading from his face.

The engineer took a moment to peel off his shirt and throw it down, then pull down his briefs just enough. He thought that that scare had effectively killed his erection, but it was still there, strangley enough. No sense in wasting time thinking; he grabbed the soldier's red hams in both hands and thrust himself between them. The soldier groaned under him, but did not cry out. His entire body clenched and shook from the pain and the shock of it, but he pushed back against the engineer as he started picking up a rythmic thrusting. His bound hands opened and reached pleadingly, though still pinned to his back. Those baby blues darted from the floor, up to the engineer's face, then away again as soon as contact was made. He was strangely free from anger, but still glinting that wild, fearful and hungry look.

"You're alright, soldier." The engineer smiled and kept pumping in and out of him. The soldier responded with a quiet hiss and bit his lip to a gentle rub on his lower back where that red mark was now starting to rise up a little, but he was still shaking violently. "It's only me." Eventually the engineer let the soldier have one of his hands, trying to console himself for having hit him so hard so many times. And for having liked it the pain that he had caused.

"Thank you, sir." The soldier grabbed and held on tightly as soon as the engineer's fingers were interlocked with his. His eyes started welling up and so he turned away and clenched them shut immediately.

"Aw, don't start cryin' on me now!" the engineer almost lost control again, but he couldn't let himself falter now. He leaned forward and wrapped his free hand around the soldier as tightly as he could.

"Understood, sir." The soldier choked, but tried to shake it off. He was unsuccessful in that although he was not actually crying, he couldn't stop the tears from running.

"Buck up, soldier! You're killin' me with them waterworks!" The engineer understood that he was trying, and that just made it that much more emotional for him. He wanted to stop and just hold him, but after all those promising threats he made, the soldier undoubtedly would not let him live it down if he did. So he pushed himself into the soldier as far as he could and paused, hoping that the swelling sensation of this union would distract them from all that emotional baggage.

"Guhhh… YES SIR!" The soldier obviously had never been penetrated so deeply before; he gaped and froze, but then snarled back with a strange, but distinctly masculine resolve. The engineer lost himself in the heat and the compression of his body; he didn't have to hear the man's heartbeat or his voice when he could now feel it coursing through him. He felt the soldier's inner world as well as his inner workings; he hugged the soldier tightly, chasing away any fears that were left. It was the kind of intimacy that the engineer had been aching for all day – maybe even longer.

"That's more like it!" He flopped his head down on the soldier's back and absently moved his pelvis a few times in him, each time getting whimpers that eventually turned into deep moans as he started palming his belly, then his very rigid and dripping erection. He then, after some effort, yanked his hand out of the soldier's grip and threw it around him. The soldier instinctively tried to tear free of his restraints and grab the engineer back, but eventually tired and succumbed to some helpless squirming as the engineer cupped his balls and slowly spread that slippery pre-cum along the length of his penis, making it throb and twitch.

The engineer had already resolved to hold himself off until after he had finished the soldier, but the way that the soldier's body pleaded him was too much. Without the use of his arms, the soldier was now forced to do no more than take what the engineer had to give; he swayed his back for him and he kept trying to twist around and put his arms around him, but couldn't. His angry grunts and groans were now starting to sound more and more like the hungry whines of an animal, then grew more ecstatic as the engineer's hands elevated him. He lowered his upper half, bending into the engineer and picking up some enthusiastic thrusting of his own. The feeling was so intense that the engineer didn't even want to know if he had already gone off in the soldier until he had successfully finished the job on him. He kept working his hands until the soldier's pelvis abrubtly shot forward in a few powerful final thrusts and he shouted something unintelligable at the wall. The engineer's body twitched a few times in the aftermath of the soldier's climax, having already been emptied, but still getting a second little blank load in. It was almost painful to pull out.

"That'll do, soldier." The engineer stood up straight and gave a sloppy salute, but immediately had to steady himself on the soldier, who was now silent and leaning flat on the wall. He patted him on the shoulder, well aware that he was out – even drooling a little this time. "Shoot… burned to the wick…" the engineer wiped the sweat from his brow and let himself have a moment of pride in his work. Then he started pulling his pants up, knowing that at some point, he was going to have to defend himself.

"Thankyou sir, may I have another, sir…" the soldier snorted, still apparently unconcious.

"Ah juss don't know which of us is worse, mister; me for fuckin' ya or you fer likin' it!" the engineer smiled and shook his head. He couldn't stand to leave the soldier like this, so with a pained grunt, the the engineer bent down and pulled up the soldier's pants to preserve what little dignity he had left.

"You're the one who's hovering, Sally!" The soldier woke up at some point during the dressing process and was now looking the engineer straight in the face while he was adjusting his belt at his waist.

"Ya know, Ah was gonna cut you loose juss now, but if that's the way it's gonna be, Ah'm havin' some second thoughts, mister."

"WELL La dee DA! … I'm sorry, please untie me."

"One thing at a time." The engineer tugged the two ends of the soldier's belt together, but found that he couldn't see what he was doing very well. "Stand up straight, will ya?"

"Roger." The soldier straightened and even backed away from the wall so that the engineer could fasten his belt for him. As soon as he was done, the taller man pivoted around so that he could untie his arms.

Once the knots were loose enough, the soldier pulled his arms away in a hurry, stretched his neck and back, rubbed his wrists and staggered around for a few seconds trying to regain his bearings. The engineer watched him serenely, but decided to keep his hands to himself, having learned his lesson more than once before. He busied himself brushing off his shirt and wiping sweat off his face with his sleeve in a rushed haze until he heard the soldier's voice again and looked up.

"Was that satisfactory?" The soldier turned to face the engineer with his back straight and his shoulders back, even with those droopy eyelids and the rasp in his throat he was looking none the worse for wear.

"Yesser." The engineer smiled and leaned back with his hands resting casually on his hips. "Ah recon you took a hefty weight off me!"

"THEN PULL YOUR PANTS UP AND GET YOUR SORRY ASS BACK OUT THERE, MAGGOT!" The soldier shouted and nearly winded himself in the process.

"Y-YES sir!" the engineer yelped in suprise and quickly bent down without a second thought. He had gotten his breifs back up and hooked his extention cord back to his belt, but had forgotten completely about strapping his overalls back up.

"Cover your shame on the double! What kind of operation do you think we're running here, private cowboy?!"

"Ah beg yer pardon." The engineer chuckled. Then he noticed something himself and grinned even wider. "Oh – speakin' a which, ya might oughta shut yer barn door before ya git back out on patrol there, mister. Hyuk, Ah know Ah wouldn't wanna get caught out'n the open like that, Ah tell you what! "

"…" the soldier took a moment to realize that the engineer was refering to his open fly. And when he did, his face turned beet red. "Don't patronize me!" he quickly zipped up, trying to subdue heavy breaths through his nose. It appeared to be a struggle to even make his hands move – his whole upper body was limp from the strain. The engineer wanted to move in and help him, but he was certain of backlash if he tried.

"Always a pleasure to be of service." As soon as he was ready, the soldier abrubtly saluted with a click of his heels. He then spun around and marched for the door, struggled for a few angry seconds with the latch, but was soon outside again. He paused midstep in the open doorway and glared dissapprovingly at the engineer.

"What are you waiting for, private?!" He barked at half volume.

"Don't strain yerself, Ah'm comin'." The engineer's smile faded into a grunt as he started walking. He hadn't noticed that the whole of his lower body, particularly around the inner thigh was burning with fatique.

"You're one to talk! You're wobbling like jello, private cowboy!" The soldier's steadily rising volume must have been some indication of his recovery. With each hurtful word he seemed to straighten up like a 6 foot wind up toy. "You should be thankful that I took pity and let you have your way with me this time! You'd be lucky to survive a light petting from me!" by now he was standing straight and pointing a boastful thumb into his confidently jutting chest.

"Ah 'preciate the offer, partner. But Ah reckon I'm done for the night." The engineer smiled again and palmed the soldier's shoulder.

"Very well! The next time I see you I expect that you will be fully rested and ready for combat!" The soldier slapped the engineer on the back almost hard enough to knock him over. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must return to my duty!"

"Alrighty then." The engineer reeled but was able to stabilize himself quickly. By the time he looked back up, the soldier had already marched more than a yard away, set on recovering his equipment and returning to sentry duty. He watched him for a second, pondering why he still felt the need to go after him.

"Hey if you need anything, you just holler, ya hear?" he called out to the soldier's back.

"Roger that." The soldier turned back briefly as he donned his helmet.

"Alrighty." The engineer replied almost out of compulsion. "Ah suppose Ah'll juss be on mah way then…" He started staggering off on his own, searching haphazardly for a more proper entrance to the compound.


	8. Chapter 8

Aside from a few errant bullet holes, the base had finally been finished and the crews had gone home. There was now the familiar humming of machinery and flourescant lighting in the halls and the open door of the breakroom announced that Demolition man was being beaten severely by the scout on the foosball table.

The head by now had been redone in the RED company color scheme but only a few of the others had as of yet adorned the lockers with their personal effects. It was barely past eight o-clock but the engineer was completely exhausted. He swung his duffle bag onto the nearest bench and about halfway through undressing he realized that he hadn't eaten anything all day aside from those now imfamous Jolly Pirate Donuts. He supposed that it didn't matter; there were vending machines in the break room and these days he didn't see much of a point in eating a full, cooked meal without company. Not that he was ever so sick with loneliness that he couldn't eat – he just had his hands full of either tools or guns anywhere between seventy to ninety percent of the time. It was just more practical to stick with foods that could be eaten with one hand, and without utensils. The engineer had essentially been subsisting on donuts, sandwiches and beer for most of his working life. There would be a summer barbeque or two of course, but that was only on special occasions.

The showers in these places always seemed to be in minor distrepair – always squeaky and always took at least five minutes for the water's tempurature to rise above freezing. He thought he would be used to it by now, but even with the mental awareness and all the times he tried taking a step back, he was always sprayed and it was always a shock. He shook it off and waited for the cold to run it's course. When he was finally able to, he streched and flexed his aching back and neck under the hot stream of the running shower. He eventually settled into a drooping stance under the water, letting it run down his body, down his legs and wash across the tile towards a drain behind him. He breathed in deep, then back out again.

She was a good woman. He'd known her since highschool, when to prom together, and the two of them picked up right where they left off upon his return from earning his PHD's. He'd been gone for almost a decade, but she had her eyes set on him and she waited for him even though she could have had any fella she wanted in the meantime. He got a job working the big Texas rigs and they got married. He spent a lot of time working; even when he wasn't laying pipe he was in the garage tinkering with something, but she kept a nice home and always had dinner ready for him on those nights when he got there. They made a nice life for themselves and it lasted for eight long, peaceful years. He would work long hours and on the way home stop at the saloon with the boys and she would go shopping and spend hours gabbing with the girls while she got her hair done. It was just like he pictured it would be when he was a kid. Even his buddies from kindergarten had grown into the police and firemen and doctors that they wanted to be and married the girls that they planned to from age 15. They all stayed around to run that little one-stoplight town so their folks could retire and sit out on their porches drinking lemonade and yelling at the neighbor kids. He never got around to fathering kids of his own, but he was planning to as soon as he got all those machines patented and he could afford sending them to school. She wanted a baby so bad she could taste it, but she was a good woman – she understood where he was coming from.

Then an old college aquiantance decided to drop by for an unexpected visit. She took one look at that long haired hippie freak and his nap sack and she turned white as a sheet. But she was a good woman and she asked him in anyway and set a plate for him at the table. They sat down to an awkward supper; he was happy to see him, but furious at the same time. And that blonde fruit was completely oblivious; he opened his big fuckin' mouth like no time had passed. It was heartbreaking having to punch his mouth shut and chase him off his property, but he had to. When he stepped back up onto the porch, she was standing in the doorway, and before he could even say sorry she slapped him as hard as she could. Eight years – the best years of that woman's life down the shitter. He figured that she would eventually find out about him, but he also supposed that she would take it better than she did.

He stayed up all that night on the porch tinkering with a higher caliber prototype just in case that son of a bitch came back.

She tried her damnedest to let it slide and keep up appearances. For another two years they stayed together, but it wasn't the same; he ended up spending more and more nights either working late or at the bar. When he came home, she still had dinner ready but could no longer stand to sleep in the same bed with him anymore. He did the gentlemanly thing and let her be. She wouldn't hold his hand at church anymore, despite his attempts to console her. When they went out to community functions, she ended up endulging in more than her share of the sauce and made a right hot mess of herself more than once. A few of those times she let the secret out, but she was so drunk, that people didn't know what to think. Rumors started to spread. Eventually she summoned up the courage to file for devorce and kick him out of the house. It didn't take more than a day for word to spread all across town. No one said anything to him right out, but he knew something was brewing in the way that they avoided conversation and even eye contact all the sudden. His mother of course couldn't turn him away, but his father never spoke to him again.

That following Sunday the preacher gave a sermon that cut down to the deepest quivering nerve left in the engineer's soul. After that, as if to add insult to injury, kids in the grocery store and the library started blurting out words like SINNER and words that he thought no kid should know, like FAG. Their respective guardians would punish them of course, but he knew that kids most only repeat what they hear. He knew to let sleeping dogs lie.

The other roughnecks made their opinions known to him more overtly; one or two cheap shots in the locker room followed by a massive brawl when he stood up for himself like any man would. He lost his job that day, and he understood, given the amount of damage he caused to company property.

That night in the 'room' in his folks' barn, he took his anger out on those boxes of spare parts and blueprints. He was about to smash the daylights out of hat prototype sentry gun he'd wasted so many months perfecting when he noticed some commotion and ran outside. He ran out and found a mob of white sheets on the lawn right in front of the house with torches and a big flaming cross planted in the middle of it all. He knew he didn't stand a chance with an eight pound wrench being his only weapon for the moment, so he braced himself when they noticed him.

They only stood there and hollered at him to get out of town. Apparently they expected him to heed this kind of warning; a bunch of grown men that up until now had been his co-workers, his neighbors, his best friends, hiding behind sheets and making threats with torches and uncocked rifles. If this was how real men acted, than he was just fine with being a gay boy.

He walked up and clocked one man out cold with that wrench, then another as they all turned and ran to their cars. He tried chasing after the rest of them, but he couldn't run fast enough to catche them no matter how riled up he was. So he took a deep breath, walked back to the barn, and picked up his pistol. And a few other things.

He kissed his mother good bye, put a bullet in each skull of the men on the lawn, then proceeded to gun down the rest of his attackers one by one. He heard his mother screaming, but saved her any further torture by not looking back. The rest was still a blur.

A bullet screamed very close by the engineer's head and popped his hard hat right off. He reflexively dropped to the ground behind a crate, still clutching that heavy tool chest in his arms. Trying to maneuver his way through enemy territory was probably the worst time for a flash-back.

He ducked down clumsily, landing on his backside between stacks of wooden crates. With each bullet that slammed into them, searching for his head, the splintering stacks seemed just too short. He scrunched down as small as he could, clutching his toolbox in both arms, catching his breath and waiting for the opportunity to move again. The heat and the noise seemed to be coming from all directions; there had to have been more than one sniper, or other members of BLU team opting to shoot from behind cover, which would have been odd, but not outside the realm of possibility. They had taken out the entire RED team at least four times over as soon as they came out of that mineshaft behind him, judging from the number of corpses littering the feild. Compared to the usual comotose, half-deaf, koala-fucking snipers, this bunch was definitely a cut above.

There were corpses of both RED and BLU all along the entire length of this rail so far and in some places they stacked three deep thanks to the constant clashing along the way; RED was trying to push in, and BLU was trying to push them back out toward their own base. The stench was starting to spread, even out here in the open, which meant that they had been lying out here under this seering cloudless sky for longer than a few hours. The engineer of course could only recall running up this way once, but there was always evidence to the contrary, so these days he always made it a habit to run for a spot clear of dead bodies, so that at least that way he wasn't making the same mistake twice. Ultimately, for all he knew, this mission could have been going on for more than a day or two, and could easily continue even longer.

After a few seconds of missing, the sniper fire stopped, and the RED engineer cautiously unfirled his dispenser kit. If he could just hold this position, the rest of the team could catch up and hopefully not die this time around. He himself had narrowly made it out of that mine in one piece, across that painfully long 30ft stretch and into this loading depot. It was a hot, rotting hell of a journey with enemies around every corner. He saw his team mates die, then come running up behind him oblivious to what had just happened to start fighting and dying again. It was nerve wracking and confusing as hell. One of the many reasons why the team never thought too hard about anything and just stuck to their pre-determined roles in each mission.

He was certain from the continued ruckus of fighting behind him, the payload was at least still moving, but from out here it was impossible to tell who was still alive. He kept watch in the other direction, but saw nothing. It was possible that the whole of the BLU team had come at them in the mine and were still there, possibly finishing them off. He kicked himself for running out ahead and leaving them behind; he just followed the soldier and the demolition thinking that they had him covered. And they did for a few seconds before the snipers got them.

If he could hold this position and throw down a teleporter it wouldn't matter. He quickly set to work, all the while still listening for any danger, but hopelessly focused on the guys in the mine and that nuclear payload. He didn't like entertaining the idea of retrieving that two ton hunk of junk on his ownHe heard a shreek from a medic, then an explosion that shook the ground and some shouting from a soldier and a scout, then more screaming as a heavy opened fire, then another much closer explosion that caused a cloud of dust and black smoke to spill out of the mouth of that mineshaft. Out of the midst of it the stocky red rubber body of the RED pyrotechnitian came jogging backwards, still dousing a screaming BLU soldier in flames. He turned around and left the man's smoldering corpse behind him, running at top speed across that open stretch.

"Get over here!" The engineer called out to him.

"Hurrdahurr!" The pyro spotted the engineer and changed direction for that cover, but took a shot in the leg. He stumbled with a loud but still muffled scream.

"Hang in there, partner! That sniper's got me pinned!" the engineer called out again, this time again narrowly avoiding a bullet to the head.

The pyro kept limping forward, then another shot slammed into his hip and he crumpled to the ground a long and painful wail.

"Aw HELL." Those low down dirty gutless cowards were shooting to wound on purpose to try and lure the able bodied out into the open. The pyro's heartwrenching cries were too much for the engineer to ignore. "SICK'EM!" he threw a sentry on top of one of those crates and it immediately started shooting. He didn't stick around to make sure it hit anything; he launched himself back out towards his teammate, still having to outrun bullets popping the sand just inches from his feet. He stopped momentarily behind a steel support beam and tried to pinpoint where that sniper was. He almost got his face blown off once, but judging from the ricoche he calculated that the shot was fired from his three oclock. He looked and sure enough he caught the gleam of sunlight off the sniper's scope. He pumped his shotgun, fired into that window and blew the windowframe to pieces with the shot. Even if he missed, he bought himself the seconds he needed to run out to the pyro and grab him by the fuel tanks on his back.

"Keep yer head up, firebug, Ah gotcha!" He started dragging him back towards the depot.

"Hurrduur!" The pyro pulled out his flare gun and started shooting into every open window within range on the way.

"EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU IS DEAD!" The heavy artillery's voice boomed out of the darkness of that mineshaft along with the payload. He had given it a good hard push, sending it roaring up ahead of him just before starting up his gas-powerd death machine. He fired continuously at anything that moved or could have housed anything that moved – a storage shed filled with explosives, a truck, an outhouse, even an old winch that was supposedly meant for hauling loads out of a hole in the ground a few yards away. He took a bullet in the shoulder, then two more in his back before he could train those six spinning barrels at the wide open door of that loading depot. Three bodies cried out in pain and fell two stories from the scaffolding inside, but the heavy artillery kept on firing in a wide half circle around the payload at anything and everything, shattering glass windows and smashign through wood until his gun started shooting air and the barrels ran red hot from that sustained automatic discharge.

"Oh my god Sasha!" As soon as he caught sight of that glowing hot metal, his eyes widened and he immediately stopped in his tracks as if in a sudden panic. He dropped to his knees and whipped out his canteen, tore the lid open with his teeth and poured its entire contents onto his beloved weapon, issuing forth a loud hiss and a thick plume of white steam. He only let himself relax when the gunbarrels' color returned to black, and did so with a great sigh of relief. He picked Sasha up even though she was clearly still hot enough to burn his skin and held her in both arms, consoling her in an uncharacteristically gentle and reassuring Russian tone as though she were a very young, but still very large and heavy child. He kissed her on the barrel, but yanked back quickly upon burning his lips on contact. It was at this time that he noticed the pyro and the engineer gawking at him.

"WHAT?!" He bellowed angrily.

"Ah din' see nuthin'." The engineer, holding back a chuckle, threw up his hands and turned away to tend to his machines.

"Hurrda hur huuuurrrr!" the pyro was back in good health and thought he'd take a shot at his giant team mate by pretending that his flamethrower was breastfeeding in his usual over exagerated pantomime.

"YOU SHUT UP!" Heavy artillery threw his empty canteen at the pyro, who dodged it narrowly and started laughing and pointing at him. Heavy artillery coughed up some blood and decided not to waste any more energy on that argument. He hoisted himself back up onto his feet so that he could trudge his way over to that dispenser. Upon arrival, the pyro realized just how bad he looked and stopped making fun of him in favor of giving him a friendly pat on the back and a few muffled words of encouragement while he stood in front of that dispenser and breathed in that pink mist. Even with that stuff working it's magic, this heat was his worst enemy; he still dripped with sweat and his face was still beet red and dirty from the soot of the mine and the mortar fire, and he still labored in his breathing. He wiped a curtain of sweat from his brow and set about reloading that enormous magazine.

"Teleporter comin' up!" the engineer had had sufficient time to fully upgrade his sentry gun and was now beginning work on the next problem.

"Hurrdahurrdahurr!" The pyro squawked at the heavy artillery to join him at the payload, shooting a few ribbons of flames to express his enthusiasm.

"You don't tell me what to do." When the heavy was finished, he made his way over to the cart and leaned into it with a grunt. The metal wheels made a slow and squeaky start, but soon made a steady roll up the strack with the pyro running in a half circle in front, spraying flames into windows and around corners as they progressed into the industrial complex ahead.

"Hey! Whadda you chuckleheads doin' out here? You havin' a picnic or somethin'?" The scout had run all this way past the warehouses up that hill and through that smoke filled mine. "You know what I really coulda used back there?! A fuckin' teleporter! I'm lookin' at you, overalls!"

"All in good time, son." The engineer didn't even turn around. Just one more good whack and that teleporter was open for business.

"Yeah, you keep doin' whatever it is you're doin' over there. I got shit to do." The scout scoffed, and started jogging up the line. "Aw COME ON! Move it, lard ass!" He ran up and started jabbing the heavy in the ribs with his bat. "My eighty-year-old grandmudda can shuffle faster than you!"

The heavy kept pace, threw one arm back and yanked that bat right out of the scout's hand.

"Woa! Hey! I was just tryin'a give ya a little encouragement there!"

"Go fetch." The heavy smirked.

"Hey that's my -!" The scout tried to grab his weapon back, but the heavy had already tossed that little wooden stick several yards down the line. "Lookit you, you think that was real fuckin' funny, don't you?"

"Da." The heavy smiled, but kept up his work.

"Oh yeah, well, fuck you too, fat cakes! This isn't over!" Scout ran off to retrieve his bat. "I'm gonna be all over you like a spider monkey!"

"GET 'EM BOYOS! *glug*" demotition appeared on the teleporter pad, bottle in hand, drunk, disorderly and ready for action. He was facing the wrong way, so the engineer stepped up to spin him around. Demolition reacted violently, spilling some of his scrumpy, but thankfully not falling down. "Keep yer 'ands off me, ya bloody … oh aye see now... yoor a right good hearted leprechaun...hold this..." the demo handed his bottle to the engineer for a moment while he cocked his grenade launcher. "Good lad." Then he took it back and took another swig just before stumbling off after the rest of the group.

"Can't you drag yerself any faster than that? Ya great lactating wet nurse!" The first thing demolition did was kick the heavy right in the seat of his pants. It wasn't quite hard enough to spur him forward, but it was hard enough to piss him off. He stopped pushing and turned around, grabbed demolition by one arm and threw him in his place.

"Okay, you are so good, YOU push cart." He gave the demolition a hard shove into the payload. Demolition started pushing with all his whiskey driven might, but he only seemed to move that cart at about half the speed. Without much concern, the heavy artillery took this chance to give his whole upper body a good stretch, popping his joints and vertebrae loud enough for the engineer to hear from this distance.

Then there was the sudden uproar of the next inevitable clash. This time it started with the deafening rattle of machine guns and the screams of RED team members as they were hit and scrambled to fight back. RED Pyro was gunned down instantly as that line of glowing BLU juggernauts came around that first bend. RED scout and demolition darted off for cover, having no chance against an uber-charged enemy. RED heavy had no chance of escape in that tight of a spot, so with a mighty battle cry he opened fire on them for as long as he could, striking down a BLU demolition just behind them before he succumbed to the other heavies.

"INCOMIIIING!" RED demolition charged back to the engineer's nest and dove behind the cover.

"Dagnabbit! Come on, fellas!" RED engineer huffed and hunkered down behind his sentry, frantically patching holes in it as it pumped bullets and RPG's into the enemy line, keeping them at a distance through percussive force more so than actually dealing damage. He took bullets in his shoulders and arms, but that dispenser wouldn't let him die so long as it was still running.

"NOT ONE OF YA IS GONNA SURVIVE THIS!" Demolition shouted his usual Celtic fury at the enemy and launched grenades in high archs over the heads of the heavies, thankfully making some sizable dents in the ground forces behind them. Just a few more seconds and the uber's finally shorted out, but with those medics still on their feet, the heavies would just keep coming.

"Lookit this! Aw lookit this! You SUCK!" RED scout came out of hiding and started gunning BLU's down from behind. One pyro down, then a medic, and a few consecutive circles later, one of the heavies finally went down.

"I hear someone building daiper changing station!" the other BLU heavy closed in and targeted RED engineer's dispenser. It was destroyed in seconds along with that teleporter. Then there was a sudden explosion of blood and fire and the huge man fell to the ground missing the upper half of his body and exposing his medic to sentry fire.

"Nice shootin' Tex!" RED engineer was overjoyed to see that heavy/medic team go down.

"Ach - save yer praises for – AAAAUGH!" RED demolition's legs were shot out from under him by a rocket blast. Another rocket came flying in and split that sentry in two. The BLU soldier only had to charge in and smack RED engineer with a shovel.

RED engineer reeled, but swung back with his wrench, striking the BLU soldier in the jaw. This gave him the chance to pump his shotgun, but before he could fire, the BLU soldier recovered and hit him again. Then again.

RED engineer's goggles were filling with blood, so he fired in the BLU soldier's general direction until he ran out of slugs – somewhere in the area of five to six times. He still heard gunfire and yelling all around, but seemed to have defeated the man in front of him. He kicked at the ground and found a body there, but then something smacked into his chest. He felt the burning of a gunshot wound, so he quickly switched to his pistol and fired once before that second BLU shot it out of his hand.

"Gaaa!" It was excrutiating, but he knew not to give that son of a bitch the satisfaction. He lowered his head and rammed himself into an enemy body, knocking both of them to the ground. He reared up and let loose bashing the man's face in with his wrench until he stopped fighting back. By now the ringing in his ears was drowning out all the noise around him. He took a moment to breathe, but found that even that was difficult; hot blood spurted up his throat and then back down into his chest, depriving him of more and more breath.

"Medic!" although he put all of his effort into calling for help, his voice barely made it out of his body. He pulled of his bloody goggles and wiped his face on his sleeve. He could now see that he had beaten the life out of an unarmed sack of oranges. He pondered what sort of insidious plan BLU had with all these oranges. Then he wondered who shot him if it wasn't these oranges. He turned around just in time for a BLU scout to smack him sideways with a baseball bat. He found himself lying on his back sputtering and spitting blood, the sky and the looming stone walls spinning all around him.

"AND. You. Are. OUTTA HE-AAAAAA!" BLU scout's celebration only lasted long enough for him to be shot and then viciously mauled by the RED soldier.

–

Every warrior worth his salts knew the value of shock and awe, or as some namby pamby lawyers called it – brutal and excessive force. George S. Patton knew it, Tsun Tsu knew it, even Abraham Lincoln knew it. The most effective way to win a fight is to destroy the enemy's very will to fight, to take the violence to such a brutal and personal level that the enemy practically destroys himself in burning up all of his resources for the sake of continuing. A man can fight and bleed and kill through mud and cold and starvation as long as even that slimmest hope of victory exists within him. If one could inflict a level of pain so deep as to destroy all of the enemies means of retaliation; by breaking his body so thoroughly that he can't even muster up the thought of fighting back, and anyone who would have sided with him is so cowed by the sight of it that they vainly beg for peace. That would be the best victory.

The only problem with this philosophy was that every single soldier on these fields, both RED and BLU believed every word of it in his heart of hearts. Soldiers never got sick of fighting the same fight every day, and never even gave a second thought to the fact that they were all copies of the same original – a legion of duplicates separated only by the color of their uniforms. They were all the same man right down to the personal ideal that a good soldier knows that no fight is pointless no matter how many arguments are made to the contrary, and no matter if those arguments came from his own team, or from a hapless organization of local activists trying to slow them down.

RED team had been pushing that nuclear payload up that mountain for weeks, and BLU had been pushing it back down in that same stretch. The local chapter of Green Peace had been trying vainly to stop the slaughter of innocent trees and wildlife with sit ins and picket signs against bullets and grenades and quickly ran out of people dumb enough to keep coming back out. At one point a few of them chained themselves to the nuke, thinking that would stop RED company from using it to destroy BLU HQ. Even when they stepped outside the bounds of peaceful protest by pelting anyone that got near the thing with fresh organic naval oranges, they didn't last for more than an hour before they were all senselessly killed in the crossfire. This incident and all the countless others before it would never come back to bite Mann Co. in the ass thanks to the chief executives pigeonholing congress into passing one or two laws that dissolved the rights of trespassers on private land.

RED medic had been trailing behind the RED soldier, keeping him alive while he blasted his way back up the hill to where they last saw the payload. They found their engineer in a storage shed and saved him from a BLU scout by way of a vicious beating. The two of them then barked orders at the man to start building machinery in stereo. Dispenser here, sentry there, the engineer didn't miss a beat. A BLU demolition man then caught the RED soldier's eye and he immediately started shooting rockets at him. The BLU demolition returned fire, much to the detriment of RED soldier's immediate team mates.

"Get the hell outta here, Rocket boy! Yer drawin' fire!" RED engineer had to duck down in the middle of building a tele-porter exit.

"FINE! YOU LADIES KEEP BREASTFEEDING THE SISSY FARM WHILE I SINGLE-HANDEDLY -!"

"RAUS! RAUS! GET TO ZE CART!" RED medic shooed the soldier along, then ducked back inside, narrowly avoiding a hail of bullets from an unseen assailant somewhere down the line. That newly upgraded sentry in the doorway took care of the rest – four precision guided missiles and an explosion later, there was a refreshing calm in the safety of this shed. The medic let out a sigh of relief and dropped the weight of that medi-gun contraption to his side while he leaned in the corner. He looked like he'd taken some bullets and shrapnel thanks to the rough ride up with that soldier, and like everyone else besides the scout, that half-mile uphill jog in triple-digit weather wasn't helping him much.

"Danke, engineer." he huffed wearily, taking out a handkerchief and mopping his brow in the glow of that freshly built dispenser.

"You're alright, doc." The engineer kept hammering away without a second thought. If he wasn't mistaken, that yawning gorge leading directly to the BLUs' local underground HQ was only a few yards away.

Then the inevitable cries for "MEDIC!" started pouring in. The scout, of course, was always the first to come crying home, followed by the demolition, who had suffered a devastating injury to his entire left side and only found his way back thanks to a percussive blast from the fray up the track.

"You are all so dramatic!" The medic stepped up and got back to work.

The looming figure of the heavy artillery materialized on the tele-porter within seconds of its completion.

"Which way is cart?" he asked tiredly, not even bothering to look around. He had his weapon at the ready and a half-smoked cigarette hanging from his lower lip as though he had simply stopped for a smoke break while he was waiting for the tele-porter entrance at the base to become operational. No one could really blame him for not wanting to run another uphill marathon.

"Zis way!" the medic sprang into action, starting off at a brisk jog.

"DA." Heavy Artillery spit out his cigarette and lumbered after the medic.

The pyrotechnitian appeared on the platform as soon as it was free. He had his mask partially lifted and appeared to be eating something.

"Whatcha got there, partner?"

"Oh nothing..." The pyro grinned.

"Whadda you mean nothin'? Ah see you chompin' on somethin' there!" the engineer chuckled.

"Okaayy, you caught mee." The pyrotechnitian was now giggling like a ten-year-old that had just been caught looking in on the girl's locker room. He took some out of his pocket to share. He handed the engineer what appeared to be little grey bits of...

"This is peyote." The engineer wished he was shocked, although he really was hoping for some m&m's. "Dagnabbit! Yer gonna get yerself killed out there!"

"That's what re-spawn is for, Papito!" Pyro gave the engineer a weird pat on the cheek that must have been meant to be re-assure, but only served to irk the engineer.

"Yer the devil himself." The engineer shook his head, but pocketed the bits. "Ah'll try em later."

"Suit yourself." The pyro pulled his mask down, and readied his flame thrower.

"Hurmhuddahur!" He stopped a moment to point at the engineer in an insistent manner.

"Ah will! Dammit!" the engineer patted the pocket on the front of his coveralls. "Go on! Git!"

The pyro took off with some muffled giggles and instantly had to set fire to a BLU soldier that had squirted out of the melle. He jogged a circle around him until he was thoroughly roasted then noticed that there were more BLU uniforms up ahead that needed to die.

"Dagnabbit." The engineer watched the fight carefully and planned his next move. The BLU still outnumbered RED three to one He immediately supposed that he should hold his position and have a little faith, but there was always a little doubt in the back of his mind. Then again, if he made any movement out of this shack, he could get taken out by a sniper. Then yet again, if he didn't move up, he might as well just sap his own machinery, stab himself in the back, and hope to God that his team would be forgiving and gentle.

"Gwon an get a move on, mate." RED sniper spoke up from just outside the shed's door. "I'll cover you."

"Much obliged, partner!" RED engineer wasted no time in packing up. Then as he was bending down and compacting his sentry, the realization that his back was exposed hit him like the Orange Blossom Special. In a flash he dropped his gear and started to swing.

"EASY! EASY!" RED sniper jerked backward. "It's ME you YOBO!"

RED engineer stopped himself, but kept at the ready. RED sniper slowly started to reach for his machete. RED engineer stayed at the ready for a very long time.

"How do Ah know you aint'a spah?" He felt like he had to make the inquiry at least.

"How do OI know YOU'RE not a spoi?" RED sniper grumbled and stared right back at the shorter man, ready to lob his head off with that machete at the drop of a hat.

The sounds of battle were still ringing through the complex; gunfire, explosions and the shouting of men echoed between buildings. Flying shrapnel could even be heard spattering on concrete just a few yards away.

This standoff was going on much longer than it probably needed to already. The likelihood of this man being an enemy was quickly fading. RED engineer had to think fast to neutralize the situation.

"HOOWEE You shoulda seen the look on your face!" He broke his stance and laughed.

"You mean you were joking?!" RED sniper straightened, sounding more angry than amused.

"Yeah, Ah knew it was you the second you -"

"You son of a bitch!" RED sniper snatched RED engineer up by the collar, gave him a stern slap and came between and inch or two of his face. "We are in REAL danger here! Now JUST GET GOING!" He then dropped him roughly and the RED engineer stumbled upon landing. Still in shock, he rubbed his stinging cheek.

"Did you just slap me?" RED engineer inquired.

"No, I merely struck you." RED sniper turned up his nose and dusted himself.

"Horseshit! That was a slap, son!" Only just after he said that, he realized that the sniper's accent had changed. "You -"

"Ongard!" BLU spy didn't waste any more time; he jabbed at the RED engineer several times before he could get a good swing in and break his arm with that wrench. He let out a high pitched scream upon impact, but was quickly silenced by the RED engineer's fist hitting him hard in the jaw. He fell out cold in the dirt. RED engineer finished him off with a single shot from his pistol.

He couldn't help but reflect on this encounter; for every enemy spy that had the professional decency to make his death quick and painless, there seemed to be an equal number of them who, for either purpose or for lack of talent, just wanted to waste his time.

On the subject of wasting time, one would think that most covert structures would have been designed with the notion that they were in fact, covert, impenetrable, or top secret as most of the paperwork indicated. But it seemed that many of these frequently and often heavily used underground headquarters were simply bored into the landscape, leaving a gaping vertical shaft leading directly down to the heart of the facility. Then as though no afterthought was given, the cart rails used to haul away the earth during the construction of these crevasses were neglectfully left in place. One would then assume that after the fourth or fifth time someone came along and pushed a mine cart full of nuclear explosives down their open roofs, RED and BLU would figure out more practical structural concepts. After the sixth time, RED engineer proposed that instead of expending so much time and resources pushing the payload uphill by hand, they could benefit from simply loading the payload into a stealth plane and drop it into the holes from above. He made several design proposals and even offered to control the thing by remote if no pilots could be found. These proposals were repeatedly turned down for various reasons that RED engineer rarely found satisfactory.

Most employees complained about working eight hour days. RED and BLU Mercenaries worked until the job was done whether it took five hours or twenty four hours, or a week and a half as in this case. Often times the men would go about their mindless repetitive tasks oblivious to the length of these missions until they stepped out of re-spawn and finding that the sun had gone down or come back up. Even then, there was no way of knowing how many days had passed since their last full body scan. RED engineer had also made proposals for pin-on combination scanner/transmitters that would continuously update the quantum specifications of each man every few seconds. Again, these proposals were repeatedly turned down with yet more unsatisfactory explanations, if he was ever graced with any.

RED engineer could have left this dead end of a career and retired a rich man thanks to the patents that he had procured during and after earning his PHD's. But thanks to his loosing his temper all over Bee Cave, he was now on the FBI's most wanted list. This contract with RED really was his only option for living as far as he knew; seemed pretty convenient that ms. Pauling found him trying to drink himself to death in a dive just outside Houston. That was a rough week.

"Heavy load comin' through!" He scurried up the line past his demoman and a BLU demoman locked in a sloppy, but deadly serious struggle and found a corner with a clear range of the payload's six o'clock to place that sentry. It sprang to life and unfolded behind him as he then ran off to place a tele-porter exit and a dispenser. Even just a few yards would make all the difference.

"HEEEEEL-" Demolition's cry was cut short by the scream of a rocket and it's subsequent explosion as it rammed right into the back of the BLU demolition, effectively turning the whole of everything above the hip into chunky salsa.

"Thanks lad!" RED demolition sat up and shook off the messy remains of his assailant, some of which had apparently lodged in his one good eye.

"CHARGE!" RED soldier's voice was almost too far away to hear over the blaring gunfire and screaming. If that even was the RED soldier; the air was already choked with black smoke, flying gravel and dust, and there were several soldier calls ringing out in anger, joy, and unimaginable pain. There were of course boisterous shouts and pitiful cries from many men on both sides, not quite twenty but close.

"NIEN! NIEN! YOU IDIOT!" It was unclear if that was the voice of RED medic, or one of the possibly numerous BLU medics running around in this cluster fuck. There was more than one heavy artillery for certain, all seemed to be winning and loosing at the same time. There were so many voices and so many explosions going off that there was no way of knowing exactly what was happening, but the intensity suggested that the cart was still moving.

RED engineer spotted a high stack of steel barrels that looked like a good nest for a dispenser and made a bee-line for it, his ungainly toolbox at the ready.

"SENTRY DOW – Gauhhh.." A BLU engineer suddenly appeared from behind that stack and fell face first in the dust at the stunned RED engineer's feet with a knife in his back.

"Bon we, laborer!" RED spy stepped out to retrieve his weapon. When he noticed his engineer standing there gaping at him he gave him the usual treatment; "And to you as well."

"Erectin' a dispenser!" RED engineer quickly took the BLU's place. There was even enough room for a tele-porter pad.

"Hey thanks pal!" RED scout appeared on the teleporter pad and in that same instant was already zipping out towards the fight.

"Hudah!" RED pyro popped out immediately thereafter, just in time for a BLU pyro to find them.

"AH! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" RED engineer tried to fight the man off with his shotgun. But that pyro was quick on his feet, dancing in and out of that little hidey hole just out of the RED engineer's shots, and still dowsing him and his whole set up in flames. RED pyro fought back with blasts of air in attempts to save his teammate, putting out the flames and giving RED engineer the chance to get a good shot in and blow BLU pyro's head right off.

"HOO! Thanks, partner!" RED engineer was still smoking from that encounter, but glad to be alive as he turned back to his machines.

"HUUUURRK! HORK! HORK! HORK!" RED pyro was already dancing an oddly lurid dance of victory over the corpse of BLU pyro and making an uncanny seal-like sound that the engineer had never heard from him before. A BLU scout tried to take advantage, but he was met with RED pyro's fire ax and was split down the middle like a log that had been filled with blood.

RED engineer rushed his repairs and within seconds his PDA alerted him that his sentry had been destroyed.

"DAGNAB-DAGG-NAGGIT-FAGGIT!" he just couldn't seem to get this shit fixed fast enough. He spun around and ran out to place another sentry, only to be accosted by another BLU scout. He found himself running backwards the way he came firing off shell after shell until his shotgun ran out and that damn scout was still hopping around him and swinging that bat like a mad man. He only got a good shot in with his pistol when the kid was practically riding him like a rodeo bull. Just one shot upwards landed in the kid's skull and he sluffed off in a heap.

"Quick as a hiccup – not quick enough." RED engineer reloaded his guns and grumbled his dissatisfaction to himself from the safety of his little corner while his dispenser healed his bruises and scrapes. Outside the battle raged on. It was impossible to tell whether or not the payload was still moving until it was announced.

"ALERT – THE BOMB IS ABOUT TO REACH THE FINAL TERMINUS!"

"Buildin' a sentry!" Even if it was just to defend this position, every dead BLU counted in this final stretch.


End file.
